Time-averaged and time-dependent energy-related quantities of harmonic waves in inhomogeneous viscoelastic anisotropic media

The energy–flux vector and other energy-related quantities play an important role in various wave propagation problems. In acoustics and seismology, the main attention has been devoted to the time-averaged energy flux of time-harmonic wavefields propagating in non-dissipative, isotropic and anisotropic media. In this paper, we investigate the energy–flux vector and other energy-related quantities of wavefields propagating in inhomogeneous anisotropic viscoelastic media. These quantities satisfy energy-balance equations, which have, as we show, formally different forms for real-valued wavefields with arbitrary time dependence and for time-harmonic wavefields. In case of time-harmonic wavefields, we study both time-averaged and time-dependent constituents of the energy-related quantities. We show that the energy-balance equations for time-harmonic wavefields can be obtained in two different ways. First, using real-valued wavefields satisfying the real-valued equation of motion and stress–strain relation. Second, using complex-valued wavefields satisfying the complex-valued equation of motion and stress–strain relation. The former approach yields simple results only for particularly simple viscoelastic models, such as the Kelvin–Voigt model. The latter approach is considerably more general and can be applied to viscoelastic models of unrestricted anisotropy and viscoelasticity. Both approaches, when applied to the Kelvin–Voigt viscoelastic model, yield the same expressions for the time-averaged and time-dependent constituents of all energy-related quantities and the same energy-balance equations. This indicates that the approach based on complex-valued representation of the wavefield may be used for time harmonic waves quite universally. This study also shows importance of joint consideration of time-averaged and time-dependent constituents of the energy-related quantities in some applications.