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Continuum mechanics of nematic liquids

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Physik der kondensierten Materie

Abstract

We develop a simple formulation of the linearized continuum mechanics of nematic liquids. This work is partly a review and partly a presentation of original work, but throughout our main purpose has been to reduce the complexity of the formulation to a minimum and to stay as close to standard continuum mechanics as possible. Two special cases are treated in detail: The orientation pattern in a nematic liquid flowing between parallel plates, and the drag on a cylinder of nematic liquid rotating in a magnetic field. In the former case we also consider how one might measure this pattern optically, and thereby gain information about the aligning forces between the wall and the liquid. In the latter case we calculate numerical results for p-azoxyanisole and compare with the experiments of Zwetkoff; there are some discrepancies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brown Boveri Research Center, CH-5401, Baden, Switzerland

    Erik W. Aslaksen

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  1. Erik W. Aslaksen
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Aslaksen, E.W. Continuum mechanics of nematic liquids. Phys kondens Materie 14, 80–100 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02422394

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02422394

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