Spherically symmetric thermo-visco-elastic waves in a visco-elastic medium with a spherical cavity

Abstract

In the present paper, the generalised theory of thermo-elasticity proposed by Lord and Shulman [1] is applied to study the spherically symmetric thermo-visco-elastic wave propagation in an infinite isotropic visco-elastic solid of Kelvin-Voight type, with a spherical cavity. The inner boundary of the cavity is subjected to a unit step in stress and a zero temperature change. The distributions of temperature, displacement, and stress have been determined by using Laplace transform on time. The second sound effects being short-lived, the short-time approximations of the solutions have been considered. The discontinuities at the wave fronts in the mechanical and thermal fields have also been analyzed.