Explicit dispersion relations for elastic waves in extremely deformed soft matter with application to nearly incompressible and auxetic materials

Abstract: We analyze the propagation of elastic waves in soft materials subjected to finite deformations. We derive explicit dispersion relations, and apply these results to study elastic wave propagation in (i) nearly incompressible materials such as biological tissues and polymers, and (ii) negative Poisson's ratio or auxetic materials. We find that for nearly incompressible materials transverse wave velocities exhibit strong dependence on direction of propagation and initial strain state, whereas the longitudinal component is not affected significantly until extreme levels of deformations are attained. For highly compressible materials, we show that both pressure and shear wave velocities depend strongly on initial deformation and direction of propagation. When compression is applied, longitudinal wave velocity decreases in positive bulk modulus materials, and increases for negative bulk modulus materials; this is regardless the direction of wave prorogation. We demonstrate that finite deformations influence elastic wave propagation through combinations of induced effective compressibility and stiffness.