The plane waves at the edge of a uniformly pre-stressed fiber-reinforced plate

The present study analytically deals with the propagation of plane waves at the edge of a uniformly pre-stressed fiber-reinforced plate of finite thickness and infinite extent. The frequency equation is established in closed form. The significant effect of wave number, compressive and tensile initial stresses (acting uniformly on the plate in horizontal and vertical direction with respect to the plate middle plane) on the phase velocity has been identified. The comparative study has been made to highlight the effect of reinforcement present in the plate medium by comparing a case where the considered plate is composed of fiber-reinforced material with a case where the considered plate is composed of isotropic material. Remarkably, it is pointed out that as reinforcement prevails in the plate medium, the phase velocity gets increased. As a particular case of the problem it is found that the edge wave does not propagate in a very thick/thin isotropic plate under no initial stress. Numerical computation has been carried out for uniformly pre-stressed fiber-reinforced plate of carbon fiber-epoxy resin and illustrated graphically. Moreover, some important points have been traced out by means of graphs.