We analyse the homogeneous instabilities in a nematic liquid crystal subjected to plane steady Couette or Poiseuille flow in the case when the director is prealigned perpendicular to the flow plane taking into account weak anchoring at the confining surfaces. The critical shear rate decreases for decreasing anchoring strength and goes to zero in the limit of torque-free boundary conditions. For...

The stability of two-dimensional Poiseuille flow and plane Couette flow for concentrated suspensions is investigated. Linear stability analysis of the two-phase flow model for both flow geometries shows the existence of a convectively driven instability with increasing growth rates of the unstable modes as the particle volume fraction of the suspension increases. In addition it is shown that th...

The spatial stability analysis of two dimensional, steady channel flow is investigated in the downstream entry zone. A model based on previous work, is presented for the base flow, which represents a small deformation of plane Poiseuille flow. The base flow evolution towards the fully developed state comes from the experimental and theoretical study of M. Asai and J.M. Floryan ”Certain aspects ...