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We calculate the threshold of electrohydrodynamic convection (EHC) for nematic liquid crystals with negative dielectric anisotropy, where one allows for different director orientations at the upper and lower confining plates (hybrid cells). Besides the planar versus homeotropic case we present for the first time an analysis of continuous tilt at one plate. The predistorted ground state strongly influences the EHC character and the roll orientation. One observes a generic nonstationary behaviour and in particular the interesting scenario of drifting oblique rolls.

Generalizing a recently introduced approximation scheme valid when the director relaxation time is large compared to the inverse frequency of an oscillatory flow, we derive equations for the time-averaged torques on the director for a prescribed plane shear flow. Whereas for a linear flow field (simple Couette flow) the average torques vanish, one has for Poiseuille flow (and more general flow fields) torques that tend to orient the director essentially perpendicular to the flow plane. For flow-aligning materials the orientation parallel to the flow is also (weakly) stable. Including the effect of homeotropic surface alignment we estimate the threshold of the oscillation amplitude for the out-of-plane transition. The results are essentially recovered (and improved) by direct numerical simulations

We present some experiments on electrohydrodynamic convection (EHC) in nematic liquid crystals with a planar, but twisted configuration (MBBA). The threshold voltage is shown to depend only weakly on the twist angle. A theoretical analysis of the onset behaviour agrees well with the experiments. More sensitive is a secondary transition to modulation structures, which are not easily observed in untwisted geometries. A rough estimate of the secondary instability based on the behaviour of the most rapidly growing modulation mode seems to account well for the observations. Additional theoretical investigations for materials with positive dielectric anisotropy concerning the competition between the Freedericksz transition and EHC are included. We predict the existence of a crossover codimension-2 point, which could easily be tested by variation of the twist angle

Using a simple averaging method we show that under plane oscillatory shear a net torque acts on the director of a nematic liquid crystal leading to unexpected flow alignment. Under quite general conditions the usual flow-alignment orientations are unstable, and the ori- entation parallel to the shear (perpendicular to the velocity) becomes most stable within the shear plane. The effect drops out exactly under (unrealistic) linear shear unless the director has a nontrivial space dependence. An explicit application to plane Poiseuifle flow is presented. Pre- liminary experimental data are shown which demonstrate a transition under planar oscillatory shear from a homeotropically aligned nematic to a spatially homogeneously deformed state.