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Simulations of flow-induced director structures in nematic liquid crystals through leslie-ericksen equations. I.
1Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Padova, Via Loredan 2, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Abstract:
A computational treatment of the constitutive equations of nematodynamics, based on the Leslie-Ericksen approach, is presented and discussed for a rotating planar nematic sample subjected to a constant magnetic field. The dynamics of the velocity v and director n fields is taken into account exactly. Coupled partial differential equations suitable to be solved numerically are worked out, in terms of derived functionals of v and n and of their spatial and time derivatives. Time-dependent patterns of the director are obtained using a finite-difference scheme in a spatial polar grid. Several experimental situations are analyzed, corresponding to common experimental setups: continuously rotating samples for different values of the rotational speed; 30 degrees and 90 degrees step-rotation experiments. A comparison is made to existing approximate treatments. Dependence upon the sample dimension is also discussed.
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