AMALGAMATED BODY WAVES, SURFACE-WAVES, AND SOURCE SIGNATURE IN A HALF-SPACE UNDER A SHEAR LOAD

The half-space elastic response to a source of a nonuniformly spatiall y distributed impulsive shear load is presented in this paper. Specifi cally, an infinite semicircular canyon of a finite radius is embedded in the surface of the half-space where an impulsive shear load is tang entially distributed over the entire surface of the canyon. In an earl ier work, the author gave an analytical-numerical method for transient multicurvilinear dimensional boundary-value problems and its employme nt to a nonuniformly spatially distributed shear load. Here, the resul tant transient deformation of the half-space is described and interpre ted. In particular, a detailed discussion is devoted to the appearance of spatially stationary strong discontinuity fronts in the interior o f the deformed half-space. These fronts, which disclose the nature of the prescribed source of disturbance, are the source signature. A deta iled discussion is then devoted to the appearance of amalgamated wave fronts (not to be confused with head waves), which are neither dilatat ional nor shear waves, and their surface waves, all revealing themselv es explicitly by the solution method.