LAUSR

Abstract Propagation of time harmonic plane waves in an infinite thermo-viscoelastic material with voids has been investigated within the context of different theories of thermoelasticity. The equations of motion developed by Iesan [1] have been extended to incorporate the Lord-Shulman theory (LST) and Green-Lindsay theory (GLT) of thermoelasticity. It has been shown that there exist three coupled dilatational waves and an uncoupled shear wave propagating with distinct speeds. The presence of thermal, viscosity and voids parameters is responsible for the coupling among dilatational waves. All the existing waves are found to be dispersive and attenuated in nature. The phase speeds and attenuation coefficients of propagating waves are computed numerically for a copper material and compared under different theories of thermo-elasticity. The expressions of energies carried along each wave have also been derived. All the computed numerical results have been depicted through graphs. It is found that the influence of CT and GLT is almost same on wave propagation, while LST influences the wave propagation differently.