61 research outputs found
Cooperative Dynamics in Unentangled Polymer Fluids
We present a Generalized Langevin Equation for the dynamics of interacting
semiflexible polymer chains, undergoing slow cooperative dynamics. The
calculated Gaussian intermolecular center-of-mass and monomer potentials, wich
enter the GLE, are in quantitative agreement with computer simulation data. The
experimentally observed, short-time subdiffusive regime of the polymer
mean-square displacements, emerges here from the competition between the
intramolecular and the intermolecular mean-force potentials.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 3 figure
Coarse-grained Description of Polymer Blends as Interacting Soft-Colloidal Particles
We present a theoretical approach which maps polymer blends onto mixtures of
soft-colloidal particles. The analytical mesoscale pair distribution functions
reproduce well data from united atom molecular dynamics simulations of
polyolefin mixtures without fitting parameters. The theory exactly recovers the
analytical expressions for density and concentration fluctuation structure
factors of soft colloidal mixtures (liquid alloys).Comment: 27 REVTex4 pages, 8 PostScript figures, 1 table accepted for
publication in Journal of Chemical Physic
Analytical Rescaling of Polymer Dynamics from Mesoscale Simulations
We present a theoretical approach to scale the artificially fast dynamics of
simulated coarse-grained polymer liquids down to its realistic value. As
coarse-graining affects entropy and dissipation, two factors enter the
rescaling: inclusion of intramolecular vibrational degrees of freedom, and
rescaling of the friction coefficient. Because our approach is analytical, it
is general and transferable. Translational and rotational diffusion of
unentangled and entangled polyethylene melts, predicted from mesoscale
simulations of coarse-grained polymer melts using our rescaling procedure, are
in quantitative agreement with united atom simulations and with experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 2 table
Multiscale Modeling of Binary Polymer Mixtures: Scale Bridging in the Athermal and Thermal Regime
Obtaining a rigorous and reliable method for linking computer simulations of
polymer blends and composites at different length scales of interest is a
highly desirable goal in soft matter physics. In this paper a multiscale
modeling procedure is presented for the efficient calculation of the static
structural properties of binary homopolymer blends. The procedure combines
computer simulations of polymer chains on two different length scales, using a
united atom representation for the finer structure and a highly coarse-grained
approach on the meso-scale, where chains are represented as soft colloidal
particles interacting through an effective potential. A method for combining
the structural information by inverse mapping is discussed, allowing for the
efficient calculation of partial correlation functions, which are compared with
results from full united atom simulations. The structure of several polymer
mixtures is obtained in an efficient manner for several mixtures in the
homogeneous region of the phase diagram. The method is then extended to
incorporate thermal fluctuations through an effective chi parameter. Since the
approach is analytical, it is fully transferable to numerous systems.Comment: in press, 13 pages, 7 figures, 6 table
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