Attenuation of the Rayleigh Waves in a Covered Half-space Made of Viscoelastic Materials

This paper investigates the attenuation of the generalized Rayleigh waves propagating in a covered half-space made of viscoelastic materials. Exact equations of motion of the theory of linear viscoelasticity are utilized. The complex dispersion equation is obtained for an arbitrary type of hereditary operator of the viscoelastic materials and a solution algorithm is developed for obtaining numerical results on the attenuation of the waves under consideration. Viscoelasticity of the materials are described through fractional-exponential operators by Rabotnov. Attenuation curves are obtained and discussed for the dispersion curves which are limited by the dispersion curve constructed for the purely elastic cases with instantaneous and long-term values of the elastic constants. According to this discussion, the rules of the studied attenuation and the influence of the rheological parameters of the materials on this attenuation are established. In particular, it is established that a decrease in the values of the creep time of the viscoelastic materials causes an increase in the magnitude of the attenuation coefficient