A New Theory of Love Waves in Multi-layered Media with Irregular Interfaces

In this article, we have derived a new and more general formulation of Love waves in arbitrarily irregular multi-layered media by using the global generalized reflection/transmission (abbreviated to R/T thereafter) matrices method developed earlier by Chen 17~20]. From the basic principle that the modal solutions are the non-trivial solutions of the free elastodynamic equation under appropriate boundary conditions, we naturally derived the characteristic frequencies and the corresponding distorted modes of Love wave in irregular multi-layered media. Moreover, we have derived the corresponding excitation formulation of Love waves in such laterally heterogeneous media by using the general solution of elastodynamic equation 17~20]. Similar to the result for laterally homogeneous layered structure, the Love waves radiated from a point source in irregular multi-layered media can be expressed as a superposition of distorted modes. Since the structure model used here is quite arbitrary, it can be used for solving a variety of seismological problems.