Study of Rayleigh Wave Propagation in Elastic and Micropolar Solids

Abstract

Rayleigh surface waves have been well recognized in the study of earthquakes, seismology, geophysics and geodynamics .These types of surface waves propagate in half space. These waves have been of long standing interest in seismology (Richter (1958)) and having counterparts in hydrodynamics and electromagnetics. Failure of classical theory led to the development of micropolar theories (Eringen(1966a)), in which force stress as well as a couple stress is needed to describe the motion of material particle, as opposed to classical theory, in which force stress is used to describe the motion. In the present work I have studied Rayleigh surface waves in elastic and micropolar solids. The dispersion equations in closed form are derived for Rayleigh wave propagation. It also includes the discussions of applications and recent research on micropolar elasticity.