An overview on numerical analyses of nematic liquid crystal flows

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to provide an overview of the most recent numerical developments in the field of nematic liquid crystals. The Ericksen-Leslie equations govern the motion of a nematic liquid crystal. This system, in its simplest form, consists of the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with an extra anisotropic stress tensor, which represents the effect of the nematic liquid crystal on the fluid, and a convective harmonic map equation. The sphere constraint must be enforced almost everywhere in order to obtain an energy estimate. Since an almost everywhere satisfaction of this restriction is not appropriate at a numerical level, two alternative approaches have been introduced: a penalty method and a saddle-point method. These approaches are suitable for their numerical approximation by finite elements, since a discrete version of the restriction is enough to prove the desired energy estimate. The Ginzburg-Landau penalty function is usually used to enforce the sphere constraint. Finite element methods of mixed type will play an important role when designing numerical approximations for the penalty method in order to preserve the intrinsic energy estimate. The inf-sup condition that makes the saddle-point method well-posed is not clear yet. The only inf-sup condition for the Lagrange multiplier is obtained in the dual space of H1(Ω). But such an inf-sup condition requires more regularity for the director vector than the one provided by the energy estimate. Herein, we will present an alternative inf-sup condition whose proof for its discrete counterpart with finite elements is still open.