The effect of initial stress on the propagation of surface waves in a layered half-space

In this paper the propagation of small amplitude surface waves guided by a layer with a finite thickness on an incompressible half-space is studied. The layer and half-space are both assumed to be initially stressed. The combined effect of initial stress and finite deformation on the speed of Rayleigh waves is analyzed and illustrated graphically. With a suitable simple choice of constitutive law that includes initial stress, it is shown that in many cases, as is to be expected, the effect of a finite deformation (with an associated pre-stress) is very similar to that of an initial stress (without an accompanying finite deformation). However, by contrast, when the finite deformation and initial stress are considered together independently with a judicious choice of material parameters different features are found that do not appear in the separate finite deformation or initial stress situations on their own. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.