Director reorientation under pressure driven (Poiseuille) flow is observed conoscopically for the liquid crystal 5CB aligned at an azimuthal angle of 45° to the direction of flow. A polyimide surface treatment (AL 1254) is used to promote planar homogeneous alignment and rubbed to produce an initial azimuthal alignment angle ϕ0. Conoscopic interference figure rotation is documented as a function of flow rate and compared to that produced from numerical models using Leslie–Ericksen–Parodi theory. Model and data show excellent agreement.
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Holmes et al. (2009) studied this question.