Modeling and simulations of drop pinch-off from liquid crystal filaments and the leaky liquid crystal faucet immersed in viscous fluids

Xiaofeng Yang, M. Gregory Forest, Huiyuan Li, Chun Liu, Jie Shen, Qi Wang, Falai Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

49 Scopus citations

Abstract

An energy-based, phase field model is developed for the coupling of two incompressible, immiscible complex fluid phases, in particular a nematic liquid crystal phase in a viscous fluid phase. The model consists of a system of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations for conservation of mass and momentum, phase transport, and interfacial boundary conditions. An efficient and easy-to-implement numerical scheme is developed and implemented to extend two benchmark fluid mechanical problems to incorporate a liquid crystal phase: filament breakup under the influence of capillary force and the gravity-driven, dripping faucet. We explore how the distortional elasticity and nematic anchoring at the liquid crystal-air interface modify the capillary instability in both problems. For sufficiently weak distortional elasticity, the effects are perturbative of viscous fluid experiments and simulations. However, above a Frank elasticity threshold, the model predicts a transition to the beads-on-a-string phenomenon associated with polymeric fluid filaments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Computational Physics
Volume236
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Numerical Analysis
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computational Mathematics
  • Applied Mathematics

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