Thermoelasticity with Finite Wave Speeds (Oxford Mathematical Monographs)

US: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hardcover. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Generalized dynamic thermoelasticity is a vital area of research in continu um mechanics, free of the classical paradox of infinite propagation speeds of thermal signals in Fourier-type heat conduction. Besides that paradox, t he classical dynamic thermoelasticity theory offers either unsatisfactory o r poor descriptions of a solid's response at low temperatures or to a fast transient loading (say, due to short laser pulses). Several models have bee n developed and intensively studied over the past four decades, yet this bo ok, which aims to provide a point of reference in the field, is the first m onograph on the subject since the 1970s. Thermoelasticity with Finite Wave Speeds focuses on dynamic thermoelasticity governed by hyperbolic equations, and, in particular, on the two leading theories: that of Lord-Shulman (with one relaxation time), and that of Green-Lindsay (with two relaxation times). While the resulting field equations are linear partial differential ones, the complexity of the theories is due to the coupling of mechanical with thermal fields. The mathematical aspects of both theories - existence and uniqueness theorems, domain of influence theorems, convolutional variational principles - as well as with the methods for various initial/boundary value problems are explained and illustrated in detail and several applications of generalized thermoelasticity are reviewed.