STUDY ON THE VALIDITY OF THE VECTOR AND TENSOR APPROACH THROUGH A 3-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION

초록

In this paper, we investigated the validity of two modeling methods, known as vector and tensor approaches, by calculation the dynamic behavior of liquid dryatals through a 3-diemnsrional simulation. We used finite difference method (FDM) as numerical technique, because it is known to be effective to the complex structure and governing equation, such as used in this simulation. To obtain the dynamic behavior of the 3-dimensional director distribution of liquid crystal, we used the Ericksen-Leslie theory neglecting the inertial moment and flow effect of liquid crystal molecules. For the free relaxation after voltage removed, Fig.1 shows that in the vector approach the directors around the disclination line relax rapidly to minimize large distortion energy existing between the normal and reverse tilt domains whereas in the case of tensor approach, abrupt variations can be hardly seen even for the directors around the disclination line. This means that the tensorial approach maintains nematic symmetry, that is, the equivalence of director n and its opposite -n.