  We study in detail the influence of molecular interactions on the Frank
elastic constants of uniaxial nematic liquid crystals composed of molecules of
cylindrical symmetry. A brief summary of the status of theoretical development
for the elastic constants of nematics is presented. Considering a pair
potential having both repulsive and attractive parts numerical calculations are
reported for three systems MBBA, PAA and 8OCB. For these systems the
length-to-width ratio ${x_0}$ is estimated from the experimentally proposed
structure of the molecules. The repulsive interaction is represented by a
repulsion between hard ellipsoids of revolution (HER) and the attractive
potential is represented by the quadrupole and dispersion interactions. From
the numerical results we observe that in the density range of nematics the
contribution of the quadrupole and dispersion interactions are small as
compared to the repulsive HER interaction. The inclusion of attractive
interaction reduces the values of elastic constants ratios. The temperature
variation of elastic constants ratios are reported and compared with the
experimental values. A reasonably good agreement between theory and experiment
is observed.
