Elastic constants of uniaxial nematic liquid crystals of non-cylindrically symmetric molecules

Abstract

We study in detail the influence of deviations from the molecular cylindrical symmetry on the fundamental elastic properties of uniaxial nematic liquid crystals. Results for the elastic constants are obtained for a range of molecular length-width ratio, temperature, density and molecular parameters. We compare calculated values with the experimental data of 8 OCB. It is observed that the effect of non-cylindrical molecular symmetry on the values of elastic constants of uniaxial of a nematic phase is small. © 1997 Taylor & Francis Ltd.