Propagation of Rayleigh waves in an axially symmetric heterogeneous layer lying between two homogeneous halfspaces

Summary The propagation of Rayleigh type waves in an axially symmetric inhomogeneous layer lying between two halfspaces is studied. The halfspaces are supposed to be identical in their elastic properties. The variation of the parameters in the layer is assumed to be of the form where is a constant andz is the distance measured from one interface into the layer. With this assumption, the vector wave equation for the layer is separable. The solution is obtained in terms ofWhittaker's functions and the frequency equation of Rayleigh type waves is derived.