Book Description

"Classical thermoelasticity theory is based on Fourier's Law of heat conduction, which, when combined with the other fundamental field equations, leads to coupled hyperbolic-parabolic governing equations. These equations imply that thermal effects are to be felt instantaneously, far away from the external thermomechanieal load. Therefore, this theory admits infinite speeds of propagation of thermoelastic disturbances. This paradox becomes especially evident in problems involving very short time intervals, or high rates. of heat flux. Since infinite wave speeds are physically unrealistic in some situations, and since experiments have shown the existence of wavetype thermoelastic interactions, like in the observation of thermal pulses in dielectric crystals, "generalized" thermoelasticity theories have been developed. This thesis concentrates on one generalized thermoelasticity theory, proposed by Green and Lindsay, in which a generalized thermoelastic coupling constant, e, and two relaxation times, t0 and t, account for finite speed thermoelastic waves . A numerical analysis of an exact analytical solution, involving an instantaneous plane source of heat in an infinite body, is performed. The analysis reveals two finite speed wave fronts for each of the four fields: displacement, stress, temperature, and heat flux. The results are complimentary to previous analysis, and improve upon them, because a large range of parameters is involved, and the exact solution to the problem has been used."--Abstract.