Polymer and Organic Materials Commons^™

A Least Squares Closure Approximation For Liquid Crystalline Polymers, Traci Ann Sievenpiper

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

An introduction to existing closure schemes for the Doi-Hess kinetic theory of liquid crystalline polymers is provided. A new closure scheme is devised based on a least squares fit of a linear combination of the Doi, Tsuji-Rey, Hinch-Leal I, and Hinch-Leal II closure schemes. The orientation tensor and rate-of-strain tensor are fit separately using data generated from the kinetic solution of the Smoluchowski equation. The known behavior of the kinetic solution and existing closure schemes at equilibrium is compared with that of the new closure scheme. The performance of the proposed closure scheme in simple shear flow for a variety …