Response of multiple layered media

A recently developed method for estimating the response of multiple coupled one-dimensional dynamic systems can be adapted to deal with the response of multiple layered media. This paper discusses this adaptation. The purpose is to bring this method to bear on this important subject, on the one hand, and to expand the range of applicability of the method on the other. In the method the interactions between the one-dimensional dynamic systems are defined in terms of reflection and transmission coefficients at junctions at which the dynamic systems terminate. In that sense the formalism is cast in terms of standard procedures in the investigations of the response of multiple layered media and, therefore, the adaptation is straightforward. Once the adaptation is instituted, the procedures are extended so that the formalism can treat situations in which steady flows are present in the layers. This extension has previously received only meager analytical attention. It is argued that in certain situations of this kind, the flows may introduce significant modifications in the response. The conditions and the nature of such modifications are defined and examined.