Lamb Waves in Anisotropic Functionally Graded Plates: A Closed Form Dispersion Solution

ABSTRACTPropagation of harmonic Lamb waves in plates made of functionally graded materials (FGM) with transverse inhomogeneity is studied by combination of the Cauchy six-dimensional formalism and matrix exponential mapping. For arbitrary transverse inhomogeneity a closed form implicit solution for dispersion equation is derived and analyzed. Both the dispersion equation and the corresponding solution resemble ones obtained for stratified media. The dispersion equation and the corresponding solution are applicable to media with arbitrary elastic (monoclinic) anisotropy.

Inference of magnetic field strength and density from damped transverse coronal waves

A classic application of coronal seismology uses transverse oscillations of waveguides to obtain estimates of the magnetic field strength. The procedure requires information on the density of the structures. Often it ignores the damping of the oscillations. We computed marginal posteriors for parameters such as the waveguide density, the density contrast, the transverse inhomogeneity length scale, and the magnetic field strength under the assumption that the oscillations can be modelled as standing magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) kink modes damped by resonant absorption. Our results show that the magnetic field strength can be properly inferred, even if the densities inside and outside the structure are largely unknown. Incorporating observational estimates of plasma density further constrains the obtained posteriors. The amount of information that is included a priori for the density and the density contrast influences their corresponding posteriors, but very little the inferred magnetic field strength. The decision to include or leave out the information on the damping and the damping timescales has a minimal impact on the obtained magnetic field strength. In contrast to the classic method, which provides numerical estimates with error bars or possible ranges of variation for the magnetic field strength, Bayesian methods offer the full distribution of plausibility over the considered range of possible values. The methods applied to available datasets of observed transverse loop oscillations can be extended to prominence fine structures or chromospheric spicules, and implemented to propagating waves in addition to standing oscillations.

Cauchy formalism for Lamb waves in functionally graded plates

Propagation of harmonic Lamb waves in plates made of functionally graded materials with transverse inhomogeneity is analyzed by applying Cauchy six-dimensional formalism previously developed for the study of Lamb wave propagation in homogeneous or stratified anisotropic plates. For anisotropic plates with arbitrary transverse inhomogeneity a closed form implicit solution for the dispersion equation is derived and analyzed.