Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Rheological Signatures In Limit Cycle Behaviour Of Dilute, Active, Polar Liquid Crystalline Polymers In Steady Shear, M. Gregory Forest, Panon Phuworawong, Qi Wang, Ruhai Zhou

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

We consider the dilute regime of active suspensions of liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs), addressing issues motivated by our kinetic model and simulations in Forest et al. (Forest et al. 2013 Soft Matter 9, 5207-5222 (doi:10.1039/c3sm27736d)). In particular, we report unsteady two-dimensional heterogeneous flow-orientation attractors for pusher nanorod swimmers at dilute concentrations where passive LCP equilibria are isotropic. These numerical limit cycles are analogous to longwave (homogeneous) tumbling and kayaking limit cycles and two-dimensional heterogeneous unsteady attractors of passive LCPs in weak imposed shear, yet these states arise exclusively at semi-dilute concentrations where stable equilibria are nematic. The results in Forest …