Liquid crystal software

Project leaders - Professor Chris Care, Dr Tim Spencer

LBLCD3D (lattice Boltzmann liquid crystal dynamics three dimensions) is the software developed in the materials modelling group to solve the governing equations of liquid crystals for typical liquid crystal mixtures such as ZLI2293, 5CB or E7.

This is a complex solution that involves allowing for over twenty phenomenological coefficients plus variable geometry, time and length scales. A list of the features of this software is shown below

• temperature behaviour
• variable order or constant order
• isotropic, uniaxial or biaxial
• fluid flow velocity
• elastic constants K11, K22, K33, K24, and chirality
• 6 Leslie viscosities (5 independent)
• variable anchoring strengths (weak to strong, homeotropic, planar, random)
• surface viscosity
• external electric and magnetic fields
• Maxwell's equations
• flexoelectricity
• optics calculations (Jones method)
• variable geometry and surface shape

Figure 1: Example of the multiscale
meso directions of the LB method
used in our software giving extremely
accurate and stable results. Each
mesoscale direction carries alignment
information of a molecular packet.
This is macroscopically projected
onto a grid to give the observables.