VISCOSITY COEFFICIENTS OF NEMATIC HARD PARTICLE FLUIDS

Enskog kinetic theory is applied to the calculation of the Miesowicz v iscosities and the Leslie coefficients of a nematic liquid crystal com prised of hard ellipsoidal particles. The anisotropies in the calculat ed viscosities are consistent with those derived from computer simulat ion, affine transformation theory and from experiment. When the Miesow icz viscosities are combined with the diffusion coefficients for a nem atic, approximate Stokes-Einstein relations are found. (C) 1998 Americ an Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(98)51603-0].