Some elastic properties of solid nematics

The general approach to study the properties of the mechanical deformations of solid nematics, which are the macroscopic homogeneous elastic media having the rotational symmetry of the nematic liquid crystals is proposed. The stress tensor, the Young modulus and the Poisson ratios for the parallel and perpendicular homogeneous orientations of nematic molecules relative to the axis of external forces influence are obtained by the varying of the free energy of mechanical deformation. It is shown that these constants have the anisotropic character and the experiments for the direct measurement of five elasticity coefficients entering the free energy expression are proposed.