On a 3D isothermal model for nematic liquid crystals accounting for stretching terms

Abstract

The present contribution investigates the well-posedness of a PDE system describing the evolution of a nematic liquid crystal flow under kinematic transports for molecules of different shapes. More in particular, the evolution of the {\em velocity field} $\ub$ is ruled by the Navier-Stokes incompressible system with a stress tensor exhibiting a special coupling between the transport and the induced terms. The dynamic of the {\em director field} $\bd$ is described by a variation of a parabolic Ginzburg-Landau equation with a suitable penalization of the physical constraint $|\bd|=1$. Such equation accounts for both the kinematic transport by the flow field and the internal relaxation due to the elastic energy. The main aim of this contribution is to overcome the lack of a maximum principle for the director equation and prove (without any restriction on the data and on the physical constants of the problem) the existence of global in time weak solutions under physically meaningful boundary conditions on $\bd$ and $\ub$.