A necessary condition for the validity of the linear viscoelastic model for a
(passive) polymeric cylinder with an ultrasonic hysteresis-type absorption
submerged in a non-viscous fluid requires that the absorption efficiency is
positive (Qabs > 0) satisfying the law of the conservation of energy. This
condition imposes restrictions on the values attributed to the normalized
absorption coefficients for the compressional and shear-wave wavenumbers for
each partial-wave mode n. The forbidden values produce negative axial radiation
force, absorption and extinction efficiencies, as well as an enhancement of the
scattering efficiency, not in agreement with the conservation of energy law.
Numerical results for the radiation force, extinction, absorption and
scattering efficiencies are performed for three viscoelastic (VE) polymer
cylinders immersed in a non-viscous host liquid (i.e. water) with particular
emphasis on the shear-wave absorption coefficient of the cylinder, the
dimensionless size parameter and the partial-wave mode number n. Mathematical
constraints are established for the non-dimensional absorption coefficients of
the longitudinal and shear waves for a cylinder (i.e. 2D case) and a sphere
(i.e. 3D case) in terms of the sound velocities in the VE material. The
analysis suggests that the domain of validity for any viscoelastic model
describing acoustic attenuation inside a lossy cylinder (or sphere) in a
non-viscous fluid must be verified based upon the optical theorem