The linear theory of thermoelasticity without energy dissipationis employed to study waves emanating from the boundary of aspherical cavity in a homogeneous and isotropic unboundedthermoelastic body. The waves are supposed to be sphericallysymmetric and caused by a constant step in temperature applied tothe stress-free boundary of the cavity. Small-time solutions forthe displacement, temperature, and stress fields are obtained byusing the Laplace transform technique. It is found that thereexist two coupled waves, of which one is predominantly elastic andthe other is predominantly thermal, both propagating with finitespeeds but with no exponential attenuation. Exact expressions fordiscontinuities in the field functions that occur at thewavefronts are computed and analysed. The results are comparedwith those obtained earlier in the contexts of some other modelsof thermoelasticity.
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