On singular surfaces in isotropic linear thermoelasticity with initial stress

It will be shown that the theory of a fundamental paper of Chadwick and Powdrill on singular surfaces, propagating in a linear thermoelastic body which is stress-free, homogeneous, and isotropic, also holds when the medium is subjected to hydrostatic initial stress provided the two characteristic speeds are suitably changed. The result is obtained by using Biot’s linearization of the constitutive law for the stress.