Propagation behavior of Love waves in a functionally graded half-space with initial stress

The propagation behavior of Love waves in a functionally graded material layered non-piezoelectric half-space with initial stress is taken into account. The Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) technique is adopted for the theoretical derivations. The analytical solutions are obtained for the dispersion relations and the distributions of the mechanical displacement and stress along the thickness direction in the layered structure. First, these solutions are used to study the effects of the initial stress on the dispersion relations and the group and phase velocities, then the influences of the initial stress on the distributions of the mechanical displacement and shear stresses along the thickness direction are discussed in detail. Numerical results obtained indicate that the phase velocity of the Love waves increases with the increase in the magnitude of the initial tensile stress, while decreases with the increase in the magnitude of the initial compression stress. The effects on the dispersion relations of the Love wave propagation are negligible as the magnitudes of the initial stress are less than 100 MPa. Some other results are obtained for the distributions of field quantities along thickness direction. The results obtained are not only meaningful for the design of functionally graded structures with high performance but also effective for the evaluation of residual stress distribution in the layered structures. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.