Use of equivalent body forces for acoustic emission from a crack in a plate

A method to determine acoustic emission of surface waves from a crack near the free edge of a plate, is presented, in terms of the function f(t), which defines the time dependence of the crack opening process, the crack opening volume per unit thickness of the plate, and the elastic constants of the plate. The determination of the time-varying displacement is based on the use of equivalent body forces, which are shown to be two double forces. The acoustic emission of the crack, or the equivalent radiation from the double forces, has been obtained by a novel use of the elastodynamic reciprocity theorem. It is of interest that the normal surface-wave displacement at a position x₀ of the free edge comes out as depending on df/dt evaluated at x₀ for t > x₀/c_R, where c_R is the velocity of surface waves on the free edge.