On the Effect of Liquid Crystal Orientation in the Lipid Layer on Tear Film Thinning and Breakup

TL;DR

This study models the tear film's lipid layer as a nematic liquid crystal to understand how molecular orientation affects tear film thinning and breakup, with implications for ocular health.

Contribution

It extends existing models by incorporating liquid crystalline behavior and orientation effects into tear film dynamics simulations.

Findings

Molecular orientation significantly influences evaporation rates.

Normal orientation of molecules slows tear film evaporation.

Model predicts flow and thinning behavior based on lipid layer structure.

Abstract

The human tear film (TF) is thin multilayer fluid film that is critical for clear vision and ocular surface health. Its dynamics are strongly affected by a floating lipid layer and, in health, that layer slows evaporation and helps create a more uniform tear film over the ocular surface. The tear film lipid layer (LL) may have liquid crystalline characteristics and plays important roles in the health of the tear film. Previous models have treated the lipid layer as a Newtonian fluid in extensional flow. We extend previous models to include extensional flow of a thin nematic liquid crystal atop a Newtonian aqueous layer with insoluble surfactant between them. We derive the resulting system of nonlinear partial differential equations for thickness of the LL and aqueous layers, surfactant transport and velocity in the LL. Evaporation is taken into account, and is affected by the LL thickness, internal arrangement of its rod-like molecules, and external conditions. Despite the complexity, this system still represents a significant reduction of the full system. We solve the system numerically via collocation with finite difference discretization in space together with implicit time stepping. We analyze solutions for different internal LL structures and show significant effect of the orientation. Orienting the molecules close to the normal direction to the TF surface results in slower evaporation, and other orientations have an effect on flow, showing that this type of model has promise for predicting TF dynamics.