Essay On Thermoelasticity

Thermoelasticity combines the theories of elasticity, heat transfer, and their coupled effects into a single treatment. Biot [1] explained thermoelasticity by deriving dilatation based on the thermodynamics of irreversible process and coupling it with elastic deformation. But the diffusion type heat equation used in this study predicted infinite speed for propagation of thermal signals. Lord and Shulman [2] defined the generalized theory of thermoelasticity in which a hyperbolic equation of heat conduction with a relaxation time ensured the finite speed for thermal signals. Using two relaxation times, Green and Lindsay [3] developed another generalized theory of thermoelasticity. A unified treatment of both Lord and Shulman and Green and Lindsay theories was presented by Ignaczak and Ostoja-Starzewski [4] Dhaliwal and Sherief [5] extended Lord and Shulman [2] generalization of thermoelasticity for anisotropic case. Chandrasekhariah [6] presented a review of work done in the theory of thermoelasticity.

Thermoelasticity has wide applications in various fields such as

Deresiewicz [18] studied the propagations of waves on the surface of an elastic thermally conducting medium. Chadwick and Windle [19] studied the effects of heat conduction upon the propagation of Rayleigh surface waves in a semi-infinite elastic solid theoretically. Nayfeh and Nemat-Nasser [20] studied Rayleigh's surface waves propagating along a half-space in heat conducting unbounded elastic media. Sinha and Sinha [21] studied the velocity of Rayleigh waves with thermal relaxation in time. Tomita and Shindo [22] investigated the propagation of Rayleigh waves in a semi-infinite body using linear theory of magneto-thermo-elasticity with thermal relaxation. Sharma and Singh [23] studied the thermoelastic surface waves in a transversely isotropic half-space with thermal