UC San Diego

The generation of acoustic waves by a modulated thermal source is examined for anisotropic materials. A wave equation is developed to include the effect of a thermoacoustic source for the anisotropic case. The dependence of the thermoacoustic source term upon the material elastic constants is identified for a thermal source varying in one dimension. This dependence is examined for several classes of crystalline anisotropy and it is found that thermoacoustic generation varies with crystallographic orientation. The directions of maximum and minimum thermoacoustic generation are not consistent for a given crystal class and are dependent upon the specific values of the elastic constants for the material.