Energy flux characteristics of inhomogeneous waves in anisotropic thermoviscoelastic media

This study aims to calculate the wave-field characteristics of four attenuating waves in anisotropic thermoviscoelastic medium. An energy balance equation relates the complex-valued energy flux vector to the time-averaged densities of kinetic energy, strain energy and dissipated energy of plane harmonic waves in the medium. A complex slowness vector defines the inhomogeneous propagation of an attenuating wave in the medium. This slowness vector is specified with the phase velocity and the two non-dimensional attenuation parameters of the wave. One of the attenuation parameter defines the inhomogeneity strength of the wave as a measure of its deviation from homogeneous propagation. The phase velocity, attenuation parameters, polarizations of particles, propagation direction are combined to define the group velocity, ray direction and quality factor of attenuation of an inhomogeneous wave in the medium. Numerical examples are considered to study the variations of these characteristics of energy flux with propagation direction and inhomogeneity strength for each of the four attenuating waves in the medium. The effects of anisotropic symmetries are analyzed on the velocities of waves. The decay-rate of energy densities is exhibited with offset in the propagation–attenuation plane.