Anti-plane shear Lamb''s problem treated by gradient elasticity with surface energy

The consideration of higher-order gradient effects in a classical elastodynamic problem is explored in this paper. The problem is the anti-plane shear analogue of the well-known Lamb's problem. It involves the time-harmonic loading of a half-space by a single concentrated anti-plane shear line force applied on the half-space surface. The classical solution of this problem based on standard linear elasticity was first given by J.D. Achenbach and predicts a logarithmically unbounded displacement at the point of application of the load. The latter formulation involves a Helmholtz equation for the out-of-plane displacement subjected to a traction boundary condition. Here, the generalized continuum theory of gradient elasticity with surface energy leads to a fourth-order PDE under traction and double-traction boundary conditions. This theory assumes a form of the strain-energy density containing, in addition to the standard linear-elasticity terms, strain-gradient and surface-energy terms. The present solution, in some contrast with the classical one, predicts bounded displacements everywhere. This may have important implications for more general contact problems and the Boundary-Integral-Equation Method.