Book excerpt: In this thesis, the effect of inhomogeneous pre-stress on elastic wave propagation and scattering in nonlinear elastic materials is investigated. Four main problems are considered: 1. torsional wave propagation in a pre-stressed annular cylinder, 2. the scattering of horizontally polarised shear waves from a cylindrical cavity in a pre-stressed, infinite, nonlinear elastic material, 3. the use of pre-stress to cloak cylindrical cavities from incoming horizontally polarised shear waves, and 4. the scattering of shear waves from a spherical cavity in a pre-stressed, infinite, nonlinear elastic material. It is observed that waves in a hyperelastic material are significantly affected by pre-stress, and different results are obtained from those which would be obtained if the underlying stress was neglected and only geometrical changes were considered. In Chapter 3 we show that the dispersion curves for torsional waves propagating in an annular cylinder are strongly dependent on the pre-stress applied. A greater pressure on the inner surface than the outer causes the roots of the dispersion curves to be spaced further apart, whereas a greater pressure on the outer surface than the inner causes them to be spaced closer together. We also show that a longitudinal stretch causes the cut-on frequencies to move closer together and decreases the gradient of the dispersion curves, whilst a longitudinal compression causes the cut-on frequencies to move further apart and increases the gradient of the dispersion curves. In Chapter 4 we observe that pre-stress affects the scattering coefficients for shear waves scattered from a cylindrical cavity. It is shown that, for certain parameter values, the scattering coefficients obtained in a pre-stressed medium are closer to those that would be obtained in the undeformed configuration than those that would be obtained in the deformed configuration if the pre-stress were neglected. This result is utilised in Chapter 5 where the cloaking of a cylindrical cavity from horizontally polarised shear waves is examined. It is shown that neo-Hookean materials are optimal for this type of cloaking. A stonger dependence of the strain energy function on the second strain invariant leads to a less efficient cloak. We observe that, for a Mooney-Rivlin material, as S1 tends from 1 towards 0 (in other words, as a material becomes less dependent on the first strain invariant, and more dependent on the second strain invariant), there is more scattering from the cloaking region. For materials which are strongly dependent on the second strain invariant the pre-stress actually increases the scattering cross-section relative to the scattering cross-section for an unstressed material, hence these materials are unsuitable for pre-stress cloaking. Finally, in Chapter 6 we study the effect of pressure applied to the inner surface of a spherical cavity and at infinity on the propagation and scattering of shear waves in an unbounded medium. It is shown that the scattering coefficients and cross-sections for this problem are strongly dependent on the pre-stress considered. We observe that a region of inhomogeneous pre-stress can lead to some counterintuitive relationships between cavity size and scattering cross-sections and coefficients.