Diffraction of a plane pulse by a closed crack at the interface of elastic solids

Transient diffraction of a plane dilatational pulse is studied. The diffracting surface is a semi‐infinite closed crack at the interface of two elastic solids of different material properties. The problem is solved by application of Laplace transform methods and the Wiener‐Hopf technique. The inverse transforms are evaluated by means of Cagniard's method. The displacement potentials in each solid are obtained in the form of real integrals. For an incident dilatational impulse, closed form expressions are derived for the displacement field. For this case the displacements at the interface are shown in graphs, and they are compared with the corresponding displacements when the two solids are of equal material properties.