Influence of prestress on the velocities of plane waves propagating normally to the layers of nanocomposites.

The paper is concerned with longitudinal and transverse waves propagating at a right angle to the layers of a nanocomposite material with initial (process-induced residual) stresses. The composite consists of alternating layers of two dissimilar materials. The materials are assumed nonlinearly elastic and described by the Murnaghan potential. For simulation of wave propagation, a problem is formulated within the framework of the three-dimensional linearized theory of elasticity for finite prestrains. It is established that the relative velocities of waves depend linearly on small prestresses. In some composite materials, however, the thicknesses of the layers may be in a ratio such that the wave velocities are independent of the prestress level [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]