Scattering of elastic waves by multiple elastic circular cylinders with imperfect interface

Abstract

In the current paper a general method is presented for the rigorous solution for the scattering of elastic waves by a cluster of elastic circular cylinders of infinite length. The interface separating the cylinder from the surrounding media is considered to be homogeneous imperfect. Specifically, the tractions are continuous but the displacements are discontinuous and proportional in terms of interface stiffness parameters to their respective traction components. Using the exact theory of multipole expansion, analytic solutions for the scattered and internal fields excited by an incident plane P-wave, an incident cylindrical P-wave and an incident plane SV-wave are derived. Numerical results for directivity patterns and scattering cross-sections are presented for a finite hexagonal array of elastic circular inclusions with imperfect interface. The results show that the sequence of maxima and minima in the curves of scattered cross-sections becomes more undistinguishable as the interface becomes more imperfect. Also, the results reveal that large low-frequency peaks of the scattered cross-sections, which correspond to resonance scattering, can be observed for both the low-velocity and high-velocity elastic cylinders with extremely imperfect interface while the small high-frequency peaks of the scattered cross-sections can appear for low-velocity elastic cylinders with relatively perfect interface. Furthermore, the results clearly show that the interaction effects between cylinders cannot be ignored for an incident plane SV-wave as compared to an incident plane P-wave. More importantly is the fact that the reciprocity relations, which hold for elastic wave scattering by a single cylinder, no longer apply for elastic wave scattering by multiple cylinders.