A time-splitting finite-element stable approximation for the Ericksen-Leslie equations

In this paper we propose an unconditional energy-stable time-splitting finite-element scheme for approximating the Ericksen–Leslie equations governing the flow of nematic liquid crystals. These equations are to be solved for a velocity vector field and a scalar pressure as well as a director vector field representing the direction along which the molecules of the liquid crystal are oriented. The algorithm is designed at two levels. First, at the variational level, the velocity, pressure, and director are computed separately, but the director field has to be computed together with an auxiliary variable (associated to the equilibrium equation for the director) in order to deduce a priori energy estimates. Second, at the algebraic level, one can avoid computing such an auxiliary variable if this is approximated by a piecewise constant finite-element space. Therefore, these two steps give rise to a numerical algorithm that computes separately only the primary variables: velocity, pressure, and director vector. Moreover, we will use a pressure stabilization technique that allows a stable equal-order interpolation for the velocity and the pressure. Finally, some numerical simulations are performed in order to show the robustness and efficiency of the proposed numerical scheme and its accuracy.Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y TecnológicoMinisterio de Economía y CompetitividadMinisterio de Educació

Hydrodynamic interactions in polar liquid crystals on evolving surfaces

We consider the derivation and numerical solution of the flow of passive and active polar liquid crystals, whose molecular orientation is subjected to a tangential anchoring on an evolving curved surface. The underlying passive model is a simplified surface Ericksen-Leslie model, which is derived as a thin-film limit of the corresponding three-dimensional equations with appropriate boundary conditions. A finite element discretization is considered and the effect of hydrodynamics on the interplay of topology, geometric properties and defect dynamics is studied for this model on various stationary and evolving surfaces. Additionally, we consider an active model. We propose a surface formulation for an active polar viscous gel and exemplarily demonstrate the effect of the underlying curvature on the location of topological defects on a torus

A projection-based time-splitting algorithm for approximating nematic liquid crystal flows with stretching

A numerical method is developed for solving a system of partial differential equations modeling the flow of a nematic liquid crystal fluid with stretching effect, which takes into account the geometrical shape of its molecules. This system couples the velocity vector, the scalar pressure and the director vector representing the direction along which the molecules are oriented. The scheme is designed by using finite elements in space and a time-splitting algorithm to uncouple the calculation of the variables: the velocity and pressure are computed by using a projection-based algorithm and the director is computed jointly to an auxiliary variable. Moreover, the computation of this auxiliary variable can be avoided at the discrete level by using piecewise constant finite elements in its approximation. Finally, we use a pressure stabilization technique allowing a stable equal-order interpolation for the velocity and the pressure. Numerical experiments concerning annihilation of singularities are presented to show the stability and efficiency of the scheme.Ministerio de Economía y CompetitividadFondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regiona

Inf-Sup Stable Finite Element Methods for the Landau--Lifshitz--Gilbert and Harmonic Map Heat Flow Equations

In this paper we propose and analyze a finite element method for both the harmonic map heat and Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation, the time variable remaining continuous. Our starting point is to set out a unified saddle point approach for both problems in order to impose the unit sphere constraint at the nodes since the only polynomial function satisfying the unit sphere constraint everywhere are constants. A proper inf-sup condition is proved for the Lagrange multiplier leading to the well-posedness of the unified formulation. A priori energy estimates are shown for the proposed method. When time integrations are combined with the saddle point finite element approximation some extra elaborations are required in order to ensure both a priori energy estimates for the director or magnetization vector depending on the model and an inf-sup condition for the Lagrange multiplier. This is due to the fact that the unit length at the nodes is not satisfied in general when a time integration is performed. We will carry out a linear Euler time-stepping method and a non-linear Crank–Nicolson method. The latter is solved by using the former as a non-linear solver.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2015-69875-