With the aid of a complete set of two scalar potential functions, the transient responses of an isotropic thermoelastic halfspace subjected to time dependent tractions and heat flux applied to a finite patch at an arbitrary depth below a free surface are derived. Using the displacements-and temperature-potential function relationships, the coupled equations of motion and energy equation are uncoupled, resulting in two (6th and 2nd order) partial differential equations in the cylindrical coordinate system, which are solved with the aid of Fourier series expansion and joint Hankel-Laplace integral transforms. The solutions are also investigated in details for tractions varying with time in terms of a Heaviside step function and heat flux as a Dirac delta function, which may be used as a kernel in any integral based method for more complicated thermoelastodynamic initial-boundary value problems. Due to the complexity of the integrands involved in the general case, the integrals cannot be resolved analytically and thus an appropriate numerical algorithm is used for the inversion of the Laplace and Hankel integral transforms. To demonstrate the pattern of deformations as well as the distribution of change of temperature at the free surface of the half-space, numerical evaluations for these functions are presented for an isotropic material.

A half-space containing transversely isotropic thermoelastic material with a depth-wise axis of material symmetry is considered to be under the effects of axisymmetric transient surface thermal and forced excitations. With the use of a new scalar potential function, the coupled equations of motion and energy equation are uncoupled, and the governing equation for the potential function, is solved with the use of Hankel and Laplace integral transforms. As a result, the displacements and temperature are represented in the form of improper double integrals. The solutions are also investigated in detail for surface traction and thermal pulses varying with time as Heaviside step function. It is also shown that the derived solutions degenerate to the results given in the literature for isotropic materials. Some numerical evaluations for displacement and temperature functions for two different transversely isotropic materials with different degree of anisotropy are presented to portray the dependency of response on the thermal properties as well as the degree of anisotropy of the medium.

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