Liquid Crystals. Iam-Choon Khoo

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Subscript v i s"/> is the space derivation of a quantity that has the unit of pressure (i.e. force per unit area). Such a quantity is termed the stress tensor σ (i.e. the force is caused by the gradient in the stress; see Figure 3.10). For example, the α component of may be expressed as

      (3.55)

Accordingly, we may rewrite Eq. (3.54) as

(3.56)

      where summation over repeated indices is implicit.

      By consideration of the fact that there is no force acting when the fluid velocity is a constant, the stress tensor is taken to be linear in the gradients of the velocity (see Figure 3.10), that is,

(3.57)

The proportionality constant η in Eq. (3.57) is the viscosity coefficient (in units of g cm⁻¹ S⁻¹). Note that for fluid under uniform rotation (i.e. ), we have ∂v_β/∂x_α = −∂v_α/∂x_β, which means σ_αβ = 0.

Equation (3.56), together with Eq. (3.57), forms the basis for studying the hydrodynamics of an isotropic fluid. Note that since the viscosity for is a spatial derivative of the stress tensor, which in turn is a spatial derivative of the velocity, is of the form . Equation (3.54), therefore, may be written as

      (3.58)

      which is usually referred to as the Navier–Stokes equation for an incompressible fluid.

      3.5.2. General Stress Tensor for Nematic Liquid Crystals

      The general theoretical framework for describing the hydrodynamics of liquid crystals has been developed principally by Leslie [16] and Ericksen [17]. Their approaches account for the fact that the stress tensor depends not only on the velocity gradients but also on the orientation and rotation of the director. Accordingly, the stress tensor is given by

(3.59)

      where the A_αβs are defined by

(3.60)

Note that all the other terms on the right‐hand side of Eq. (3.59) involve the director orientation, except the fourth term, α₄A_αβ.This is the same term as that for an isotropic fluid (cf. Eq. [3.57]), that is, α₄ = 2η.

      Therefore, in this formalism, we have six so‐called Leslie coefficients, α₁,α₂,…, α₆, which have the dimension of viscosity coefficients. It was shown by Parodi [18] that

      (3.61)

      and so there are really five independent coefficients.

      In the next few sections, we will study exemplary cases of director axis orientation and deformation, and we will show how these Leslie coefficients are related to other commonly used viscosity coefficients.

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