Generalized micropolar thermoelasticity

The basis of entropy production inequality for classical thermoelastic solid, as proposed by Green and Laws[1] and independently by Suhubi[2], is extended in this paper to encompass the more general case of micropolar thermoelastic solids. On linearisation it is shown that the energy equation becomes hyperbolic in form thereby exhibiting wave properties for thermal disturbances. As an illustrative example the propagation of acceleration waves is investigated and the acoustic tensor, which determines the speeds of propagation, is obtained.