The effect of inextensibility on elastic surface waves

It is shown that when the complications associated with material anisotropy are absent a simple exact analysis can be given of the effect of unidirectional inextensibility on the propagation of surface waves in a semi-infinite elastic body. Provided that the direction of inextensibility e is not orthogonal to either m or m Λ n (m being the outward unit normal to the traction-free boundary of the body and n the wave normal), a unique surface wave exists with displacement everywhere orthogonal to e. The surface-wave solution is assembled from inhomogeneous plane waves in the usual manner, but a novel feature is the presence of a degenerate wave producing no displacement yet perturbing sinusoidally the tension in the inextensible fibres. When the aforementioned provisos are not met the surface wave either degenerates continuously into a shear wave (when $\text{(}\text{m}\text{Λ}\text{n}\text{)·}\text{e}\text{= 0,}\text{m}\text{·}\text{e}\text{≠ 0)}$, ceases to exist (when $\text{m}\text{·}\text{e}\text{= 0,}\text{n}\text{·}\text{e}\text{≠ 0)}$, or merges smoothly into a Rayleigh wave (when $\text{(}\text{e}\text{=±}\text{m}\text{Λ}\text{n}$, the inextensibility constraint then being inoperative).