This study explores the effects of the thermal stress, rotation, and magnetic fields on the propagation of surface waves in a symmetric five-layered inhomogeneous elastic plate. The harmonic wave solution was adopted to reduce the given partial differential equations to their corresponding ordinary differential equations, which were later solved using a classical method. The Mathematica software was also employed for the numerical simulations. The dispersion relations associated with both the symmetric and antisymmetric modes have been determined and analyzed with regard to the aforementioned external effects and rotation. The variations in thermal stress positively affect the wave propagation in the plate even for relatively smaller values of the temperature variation. Also, the same trend is observed in the case of the magnetic field, but for higher values. Finally, for the rotation, it was found that the angular velocity must reach at least 104 before a significant change is observed; which in fact differs from the situations of half-plane reflection and single-layered.
Keywords: Surface waves; layered plate; magnetic field; rotation; thermal stress.