Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Active Polar Liquid Crystal Channel Flows: Analyzing The Roles Of Nematic Strength And Activation Parameter, Lacey Schenk, Ruhai Zhou

College of Sciences Posters

Suspensions of active polar liquid crystalline polymers (APLC) exhibit complex phenomena such as spontaneous flows, pattern formations and defects. Using the Kinetic Model, which couples the Smoluchowski Equation and the Navier-Stokes Equations, we conduct numerical simulations of APLC in a microfluidic channel to investigate the competitive effect among different material constants, such as the nematic concentration (the strength of the potential for nematic order) and active strength (the individual nano-rods strength of their individual movement) with and without a pressure gradient. Both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on the mathematical model are employed. Steady states, including isotropic and nematic states, …