Subsonic slip waves along the interface between two anisotropic elastic half-spaces in sliding contact with separation

The Stroh sextic formalism, together with the Fourier analysis and singular integral equation technique, is used to study propagation of possible slip waves in presence of local separation at the interface between two contact anisotropic solids. The existence of such waves is discussed in details. It is found that such waves may exist if at least one medium admits a Rayleigh wave below the minimum limiting speed of the two media. The wave speed is not fixed. It can be of any value in some regions between the lower Rayleigh wave speed and minimum limiting speed, depending on the existence of the first and second slip-wave solutions without interfacial separation studied by Barnett et al. [Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 415 (1988) 389]. The waves have no free amplitude directly, but involve arbitrary size of the separation zone which depends on the intensity of the motion. The interface normal traction and the particle velocities involve square-root singularities at both ends of the separation zones. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.