Nonlinear waves in slightly anisotropic elastic media (Q922778)

Slightly nonlinear plane waves in elastic materials possessing an arbitrary kind of intrinsic anisotropy as well as anisotropy caused by homogeneous initial deformation are considered. When considering low-amplitude waves the internal energy of the medium can be expanded in series in the deformations, while being constrained to terms not higher than the fourth degree. If the anisotropy influences just the form of the quadratic terms, then the internal energy can always be reduced to the same form as for deformation anisotropy with conservation of all the nonlinear wave properties considered earlier. If the anisotropy results in the appearance of cubic terms in the internal energy expansion that have the same order of magnitude as the quadratic terms associated with the anisotropy, then it is shown that conversion of the coordinate system in displacement gradient space can formally reduce the intrinsic anisotropy of the material for certain kinds of anisotropy, particularly, for transversally-isotropic and orthotropic media, to the same form as for anisotropy produced by preliminary elastic deformation in an isotropic material.