Mechanical model study of relationship of molecular configuration and multiphase in liquid crystal materials

A mechanical model of liquid crystals (LCs) is applied to study the polymorphism of homologous series of terphenyl compounds. With a semi-experimental molecular orbit method, we calculate the moment of inertia which represents the rotation state to describe the phase transition temperature obtained from experimental data. We propose a novel explanation of the phase sequence or polymorphism of LC materials using the two key parameters, the moment of inertia and critical rotational velocity. The effect of molecular polarity on the appearance of liquid crystalline is also discussed.