Thermal shock in an elastic body with a spherical cavity

Abstract

This investigation aims at the dynamic thermoelastic response of an infinite medium with a spherical cavity to a sudden uniform change in the temperature of its internal boundary. By means of the Laplace transform, a closed solution to this problem—exact within classical elastokinetics—is obtained in terms of error functions of real and complex arguments. The ensuing temperature stresses are compared with the corresponding quasi-static results.