Homothermal acceleration waves in nematic liquid crystals

The aim of this paper is the study of propagation of acceleration waves of arbitrary shape in nematic liquid crystals. The development of balance equa tion reduced to singular surface and the application of Hadamard's theorem permit to obtain the speeds and the conditions of propagation of the accele ration waves. Differential equations that describe the modifications of the metric and topological properties of the wave during the propagation are d educed in function of kinematical descriptors of the continuum and its ther modynamical state. The deduction of the coefficients of evolution equation for the amplitude of the jump concludes the paper. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.