31 research outputs found
Viscosities of the Gay-Berne nematic liquid crystal
We present molecular dynamics simulation measurements of the viscosities of
the Gay-Berne phenomenological model of liquid crystals in the nematic and
isotropic phases. The temperature dependence of the rotational and shear
viscosities, including the nonmonotonic behavior of one shear viscosity are in
good agreement with experimental data. The bulk viscosities are significantly
larger than the shear viscosities, again in agreement with experiment.Comment: 11 pages, 4 Postscript figures, Revte
Flow-induced delayed Freedericksz transition
We demonstrate that a compact manometer experiment allows direct observation of a delay to the classical electric-field-induced Freedericksz transition produced by flow in a highly dispersive nematic liquid crystal layer. The Ericksen-Leslie equations are used to show that a flow aligning torque generated in the nematic layer under Poiseuille flow competes with the orthogonal electric-field reorientation torque. This model fully reproduces the experimental results using only self-consistently determined viscosity values, and predicts a more generally applicable expression for the dependence of the delay Ec鈭濃垰味/螖蠂e on the shear rate 味 and on the electric susceptibility anisotropy 螖蠂e