Thermal shock problem in generalized thermo-viscoelasticty under four theories

A model of the equations of generalized thermoviscoelasticity for isotropic media is given. The formulation is applied to the generalized thermoelasticity theories: Lord-Shulman, Green-Lindsay and Chandrasekharaiah and Tzou as well as to the dynamic coupled theory. The state space approach is adopted for the solution of one-dimensional problems in the absence of heat sources. The Laplace-transform technique is used. The expansions of the stress component, the temperature and the displacement in Laplace transform domain, in power series and the exact inversions for arbitrary time are given. The jump discontinuities are calculated for the four theories. Numerical results are given and illustrated graphically employing numerical method for the inversion of the Laplace transforms. Comparisons are made with the results predicted by the four theories. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.