Influence of the composition of the polymer matrix on the electrooptical properties of films with a dispersed liquid crystal

Polymer films with a dispersed liquid crystal were prepared by photopolymerization of (meth)acrylic monomers. The electrooptical properties of these films were studied. The influence exerted by the composition of the monomer mixture, cross-linking agents, and chain-transfer agent on the liquid crystal drop size and on the transmission of the polymer-liquid crystal films was examined.     

Study of the dynamic structure factor of strong glasses

The dynamic structure factors (DSFs) of several strong glasses (SF6, SF10, BK7, SUPRASIL) measured by Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy are reported. Spectra have been collected, at and above room temperature, at two scattering angles, θ=90° and θ=180° corresponding to exchanged wavevector q values ranging from 0.0256 to 0.0448 nm⁻¹. In particular we find that the isotropic spectral lineshapes are in all cases well described by the simple hydrodynamic theory of an amorphous solid. The width of the Brillouin peaks are found to be consistent with the predicted q² dependence at both investigated temperatures. This damping is however found to account only partially for the strong asymmetry of the Brillouin line clearly visible on a logarithmic intensity scale. As a matter of fact there is an excess intensity in the very low frequency plateau underlying the central component. The height of this plateau and hence the entire lineshape is well reproduced if a relaxation process is taken into account in the hydrodynamic equations. Owing to the intense elastic scattering we are able to determine unambiguously only the ratio between amplitude and characteristic time of this process which quantifies the sound dispersion to be of the order of a few percent in all samples. The temperature dependence of the parameters indicates that this relaxation cannot be attributed to thermally activated relaxation phenomena. These general findings favorably compare with molecular dynamics simulation results on similar systems.     

Electrohydrodynamic instability in some nematic cyanobiphenyls in an a.c. electric field

Electrohydrodynamic instability in homeotropically oriented nematic samples of 4'-n-octyl-4-cyano-biphenyl and 4'n-alkyloxy-4-cyanobiphenyl, (n = 8.9) have been studied in an a.c. electric field. The domain patterns during the instability in these compounds in a very low frequency a.c. field are very similar to those in a d.c. field. The domain patterns observed at higher frequencies have been identified as 'maltese crosses' or 'crossed isogyres'. The electro-convective 'isotropic' flows near the electrode play an important role in the observed instability.     

Combined supercritical-fluid chromatography/mass spectrometry in the analysis of diuron in plasma using on-line phase-system switching

On-line sample pretreatment by means of the phase-system switching approach is an interesting technique for the analysis of aqueous samples, e.g., plasma, by means of supercritical-fluid chromatography. In order to analyse plasma samples the following analytical procedure is used. The plasma sample is injected on to a short precolumn, which is washed with water and subsequently dried with nitrogen. Next, the solutes are desorbed with the supercritical mobile phase, analysed with packed-column supercritical-fluid chromatography and detected with either a UV detector or a mass spectrometer, equipped with a moving-belt interface. The herbicide diuron is selected as a test compound to study the feasibility of this approach. Using a selective detector the procedure is sufficiently sensitive to detect diuron in plasma, but not appropriate to detect the diuron metabolites in a post-mortem plasma sample. These have been identified with liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The detection limit of diuron in plasma using the procedure described is about 30 ng/mL.     

Direct numerical simulation of settling of a large solid particle during bioconvection

Settling of a large solid particle in bioconvection flow caused by gyrotactic microorganisms is investigated. The particle is released from the top of the bioconvection chamber; its settling pattern depends on whether it is released in the centre of the bioconvection plume or at its periphery. The Chimera method is utilized; a subgrid is generated around a moving particle. The method suggested by Liu and Wang (Comput. Fluid 2004; 33 :223–255) is further developed to account for the presence of a moving boundary in the streamfunction‐vorticity formulation using the finite‐difference method. A number of cases for different release positions of the particle are computed. It is demonstrated that bioconvection can either accelerate or decelerate settling of the particle depending on the initial position of the particle relative to the plume centre. It is also shown that the particle impacts bioconvection plume by changing its shape and location in the chamber. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A test problem for molecular dynamics integrators

We derive a test problem for evaluating the ability of time-steppingmethods to preserve the statistical properties of systems inmolecular dynamics. We consider a family of deterministic systemsconsisting of a finite number of particles interacting on acompact interval. The particles are given random initial conditionsand interact through instantaneous energy- and momentum-conservingcollisions. As the number of particles, the particle density,and the mean particle speed go to infinity, the trajectory ofa tracer particle is shown to converge to a stationary Gaussianstochastic process. We approximate this system by one describedby a system of ordinary differential equations and provide numericalevidence that it converges to the same stochastic process. Wesimulate the latter system with a variety of numerical integrators,including the symplectic Euler method, a fourth-order Runge-Kuttamethod, and an energyconserving step-and-project method. Weassess the methods' ability to recapture the system's limitingstatistics and observe that symplectic Euler performs significantlybetter than the others for comparable computational expense.     

Numerical simulations of a filament in a flowing soap film

Experiments concerning the properties of soap films have recently been carried out and these systems have been proposed as experimental versions of theoretical two‐dimensional liquids. A silk filament introduced into a flowing soap film, was seen to demonstrate various stable modes, and these were, namely, a mode in which the filament oscillates and one in which the filament is stationary and aligns with the flow of the liquid. The system could be forced from the oscillatory mode into the non‐ oscillatory mode by varying the length of the filament. In this article we use numerical and computational techniques in order to simulate the strongly coupled behaviour of the filament and the fluid. Preliminary results are presented for the specific case in which the filament is seen to oscillate continuously for the duration of our simulation. We also find that the filament oscillations are strongly suppressed when we reduce the effective length of the filament. We believe that these results are reminiscent of the different oscillatory and non‐oscillatory modes observed in experiment. The numerical solutions show that, in contrast to experiment, vortices are created at the leading edge of the filament and are preferentially grown in the curvature of the filament and are eventually released from the trailing edge of the filament. In a similar manner to oscillating hydrofoils, it seems that the oscillating filaments are in a minimal energy state, extracting sufficient energy from the fluid to oscillate. In comparing numerical and experimental results it is possible that the soap film does have an effect on the fluid flow especially in the boundary layer where surface tension forces are large. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.