WAVES IN PRE-STRETCHED INCOMPRESSIBLE SOFT ELECTROACTIVE CYLINDERS： EXACT SOLUTION

This paper studies wave propagation in a soft electroactive cylinder with an under- lying finite deformation in the presence of an electric biasing field. Based on a recently proposed nonlinear framework for electroelastieity and the associated linear incremental theory, the basic equations governing the axisymmetric wave motion in the cylinder, which is subjected to homo- geneous pre-stretches and pre-existing axial electric displacement, are presented when the elec- troactive material is isotropic and incompressible. Exact wave solution is then derived in terms of （modified） Bessel functions. For a prototype model of nonlinear electroactive material, illus- trative numerical results are given. It is shown that the effect of pre-stretch and electric biasing field could be significant on the wave propagation characteristics.