Transmission and Reflection of Plane Waves at an Elastic-Viscoelastic Interface

Summary The reflected and transmitted waves due to an elastic plane sinusoidal P or SV wave impinging on the plane interface between an elastic and a linearly viscoelastic medium are found analytically for any type of viscoelastic behaviour. The properties of these waves depend both on the frequency of the incident wave and the angle of incidence of the impinging wave. Some general properties of the transmitted waves are that both the dilatational and equivoluminal waves in the viscoelastic media have refraction angles less than 90°, the displacement trajectories of material points in the viscoelastic media are ellipses, and the waves attenuate with increasing distance from the interface.