Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Research on transport, self-assembly and defect dynamics within confined, flowing liquid crystals requires versatile and computationally efficient mesoscopic algorithms to account for fluctuating nematohydrodynamic interactions. We present a multi-particle collision dynamics (MPCD) based algorithm to simulate liquid-crystal hydrodynamic and director fields in two and three dimensions. The nematic-MPCD method is shown to successfully reproduce the features of a nematic liquid crystal, including a nematic-isotropic phase transition with hysteresis in 3D, defect dynamics, isotropic Frank elastic coefficients, tumbling and shear alignment regimes and boundary condition-dependent order parameter fields.
Source: Soft Matter
DOI: 10.1039/c5sm00839e
Authors: Tyler N. Shendruk, Julia M. Yeomans
Institution: University of Oxford
Language: English
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1862921386