Free vibration of microstretch thermoelastic plate with one relaxation time

The propagation of waves in microstretch thermoelastic homogeneous isotropic plate subjected to stress free thermally insulated and isothermal conditions is investigated in the context of conventional coupled thermoelasticity (CT) and Lord and Shulman (L–S) theories of thermoelasticity. The secular equations for both symmetric and skew-symmetric wave mode propagation have been obtained. At short wavelength limits, the secular equations for symmetric and skew-symmetric modes reduce to Rayleigh surface wave frequency equation. The amplitudes of dilatation, microrotation, microstretch and temperature distribution for the symmetric and skew symmetric wave modes are computed analytically and presented graphically for different theories of thermoelasticity. The theoretical and numerical computations are found to be in close agreement.