Shear wave excitation of an equilateral triangular solid bar shows the existence of horizontally polarized (SH) and vertically polarized (SV) shear waves. The SH wave modes are Lamé solutions of the Neumann problem for displacement and Dirichlet problem for stress in the equilateral triangle. It is shown that Lamé's solutions are obtained from superposition of three equal plane waves and their reflections. The Neumann SH modes have cutoff wavenumber 4mπ/(3a), where m=1,2,3,…, a being the side length of triangular cross section. The first Dirichlet SH mode has a higher cutoff wavenumber 4π7/(3a). The SV modes are related to the 30°-60°-90° and 30°-120°-30° sub triangles. Their cutoff wavenumbers lie between those of the first (m = 1) and second (m = 2) Neumann SH modes. The standing wave condition in each sub triangle is related to three unequal plane waves which decompose via symmetrical component analysis into two different sets of equal plane waves. A nonlinear product solution based on the new plane wave set leads to modal SV wave solutions. Dispersion curves calculated using COMSOL confirm the correct cutoff wavenumbers of both SH and SV waves. Normal displacement mode shapes are calculated analytically and verified experimentally using laser vibrometer with good agreement for all modes.
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