EFFECT OF COUPLE STRESS ON THE PROPAGATION OF WAVES IN A THERMO-ELASTIC LAYER.

The present paper is concerned with the investigation of the effects of couple stress on the two-dimensional thermo-elastic wave propagation in an elastic layer of finite thickness. Using the linearized theory of couple stress elasticity and considering the influence of thermal field of classical thermo-elasticity, the field equations of motion have been derived by introducing two displacement potential functions. The appropriate boundary conditions for stresses and couple stresses together with the radiative conditions for temperature have been used to find the wave velocity equation for the propagation of two-dimensional waves. This wave equation is then discussed for certain interesting particular cases of wave propagation in layer and semi-space including surface waves. It is found that the wave velocity equation is in fair agreement with the corresponding classical problem when the couple stress effect and thermal effect are vanishingly small.