Rayleigh waves in isotropic elastic materials with micro-voids

Abstract: In this paper, we show that a general method introduced by Fu and Mielke allows to give a complete answer on the existence and uniqueness of a subsonic solution describing the propagation of surface waves in an isotropic half space modelled with the linear theory of isotropic elastic materials with micro-voids. Our result is valid for the entire class of materials admitting real wave propagation which include auxetic materials (negative Poisson's ration) and composite materials with negative-stiffness inclusions (negative Young's modulus). Moreover, the used method allows to formulate a simple and complete numerical strategy for the computation of the solution.