Reflection and Transmission of Obliquely Incident Surface Waves by an Edge of a Quarter Space: Theory and Experiment

The reflection and transmission of a plane time-harmonic surface wave which is obliquely incident on the edge of a quarter space is investigated theoretically, numerically, and experimentally. The theoretical formulation of the problem, which takes advantage of the translational invariance along the edge of the quarter space, is reduced to a system of singular integral equations along axes normal to the edge, for the defracted displacement components on the faces of the quarter space axes normal to the edge. The truncation of these equations leads to the definition of reflection and transmission coefficients, R and T. The equations are solved for R, T, and the diffracted displacements by the use of the boundary element method. A self-calibrated experimental technique is proposed which deploys four surface wave transducers, and which removes the effects of variable coupling between the transducers and the faces of the quarter space as the positions of the transducers are varied. The technique is particularly suited for the measurement of |R/T| as a function of the angle of incidence. Excellent agreement is observed between numerically and experimentally obtained values.