Effects of damping in a solid on acoustic beams reflected at the Rayleigh critical angle

The reported investigation shows that acoustic damping in a solid can have a pronounced effect on the profile of an acoustic beam which has been reflected by the solid into a fluid. Plane wave reflection and transmission coefficients are considered and the characteristics of the power flow in the Rayleigh wave fields are investigated. Effects of losses in the solid on the reflected beam profile are discussed. It is concluded that the variation of beam profile with loss can provide an operational basis for simple instrumentation designed to determine the properties of a solid responsible for the acoustic loss