PLANE-WAVE RESPONSE OF AN ELASTIC CHIRAL SOLID SLAB SANDWICHED BETWEEN ACHIRAL SOLID HALF-SPACES

Considered in this paper are two boundary-value problems: first, a plane wave incident upon a planar interface separating an achiral elastic half-space from a chiral elastic half-space; second, a plane wave incident upon a chiral slab interposed between two achiral elastic solid half-spaces. The inability of the achiral solid medium to support the microrotation field and the couple-stress dyadic provides the option of two distinct sets of boundary conditions at achiral/chiral interfaces. It is observed from numerical computations that using either set of boundary conditions in either of the two boundary-value problems results in the satisfaction of the principle of conservation of energy. Thus, it appears that the physically proper set of boundary conditions for a chiral/achiral interface may have to be decided experimentally.