Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/iii/paper-78/2/iv/solution

At a welded interface, elastic-interface boundary conditions require continuous SH displacement and shear traction. Incident and reflected vertical slownesses have signs , giving
Thus the local displacement coefficient is
It multiplies the leading waveform discontinuity as well as a harmonic displacement. At the interface the incident amplitude from SH ray-tube amplitude transport is , where is the incident path length and is the source normalization from the previous part.
The transmitted geometrical spreading is not simply its total path length. Differentiate the ray position with respect to at fixed travel time and project onto the unit direction transverse to the transmitted ray, . Since , the transverse width per unit is
The derivative of contributes only in the ray direction and drops out of this projection. At entry,
Within uniform medium 2 the leading amplitude varies as , so the required refraction of a cylindrical SH wavefront amplitude is
The local transmission coefficient and ray-tube spreading together incorporate both impedance contrast and refraction. Indeed the normal energy transmission fraction is , while the change of transverse width supplies the refraction factor in the conserved tube flux. If the media coincide, and , reducing this expression to as required. The formula holds for the stated propagating slownesses, without a critical or head-wave contribution.

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