On induced discontinuities behind shock waves in isotropic linear viscoelastic materials

In this paper the governing differential equations of induced discontinuities behind longitudinal and transverse shocks propagating in isotropic linear viscoelastic materials are derived. It is shown that,when the shock amplitudes are finite, the evolutionary behavior of the induced discontinuities depends on additional properties of the stress relaxation functions, viz. the initial values of their first and second derivatives, and nonlinearly on the second fundamental form of the shock surfaces. The results indicate that evolutionary behavior of mechanical pulses containing shocks can be quite complex