Kinetic derivation of thermal viscous models for nematic liquid crystal dynamics

Abstract

We develop a macroscopic thermodynamic theory of nematic liquid crystals starting from a kinetic theory of ordered fluids with a collision operator of Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) type. The kinetic description incorporates mean-field alignment interactions through a Vlasov potential and relies on a separation of time scales, with orientational relaxation occurring on a faster time scale than translational momentum relaxation. At the continuum level, we establish the balance equations for mass, linear and angular momentum, energy, and entropy. Using the zeroth and first order Chapman-Enskog expansions, we derive a constitutive equation for the Helmholtz free energy and identify the associated structural form of the entropy production rate. We then exploit additional information from the kinetic description to determine a constitutive relation for the entropy production rate itself. Finally, by applying the constrained maximisation procedure of Rajagopal and Srinivasa, we obtain constitutive equations for the Cauchy stress and couple-stress tensors, as well as for the energy and entropy fluxes. In this way we generalise the recent inviscid kinetic theory of Farrell, Russo, and Zerbinati to account for viscous, thermal, and spin-diffusive effects, using the simplest BGK-type approximation of the collision operator. Both compressible and incompressible variants of the theory are presented.