Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, Vol.248, 62-73, 2017
Three-dimensional coarsening dynamics of a conserved, nematic liquid crystal-isotropic fluid mixture
We present a numerical investigation of the three-dimensional coarsening dynamics of a nematic liquid crystal-isotropic fluid mixture using a conserved phase field model. The model is a coupled system for a generalized Cahn-Hilliard equation for the order parameter phi, related to the volume fraction of the nematic component, and a simplified de Gennes-Prost evolution equation for the director field n, which describes the mean orientation of the rigid rod-like, liquid crystal molecules. We find that, as in the two-dimensional system, the orientational distortion induced by interfacial anchoring has profound effects both on the morphology and the coarsening rate. However, we identify significant differences in the three-dimensional and two-dimensional coarsening processes. In particular, we find a remarkable, new 3-stage late coarsening process with markedly different coarsening rates in the three-dimensional bicontinuous phase separation with homeotropic anchoring, unseen in the two-dimensional system. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Canh-Hilliard equation;Model B;Nematic liquid crystal;Nucleation;Planar and homeotropic anchoring;Semi-implicit methods;Adaptive mesh refinements