Existence and Uniqueness of Edge Waves in a Generally Anisotropic Elastic Plate

We study flexural edge waves propagating along the edge of a semi‐infinite, generally anisotropic elastic plate. It is assumed that the plate is described by the classical plate theory and its mid‐plane is a plane of material symmetry. We define an edge‐impedance matrix M(υ) in terms of which the secular equation determining the edge‐wave speed υ may be written as detM(υ) = 0. Some properties of M(υ) are established and are used to show that whenever an edge wave exists it is unique. A simple procedure is proposed that can be used to test the existence of edge waves and to compute the edge‐wave speed.