Related papers: Entangled Dynamics of a Stiff Polymer
Stress relaxation following deformation of an entangled polymeric liquid is thought to be affected by transient reforming of chain entanglements. In this work, we use single molecule techniques to study the relaxation of individual polymers…
Tracer-diffusion of small molecules through dense systems of chain polymers is studied within an athermal lattice model, where hard core interactions are taken into account by means of the site exclusion principle. An approximate mapping of…
Nonlinear extensional flows are common in polymer processing but remain challenging theoretically because dramatic stretching of chains deforms the entanglement network far from equilibrium. Here, we present coarse-grained simulations of…
We present atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of two Polyethylene systems where all entanglements are trapped: a perfect network, and a melt with grafted chain ends. We examine microscopically at what level topological constraints can…
Polydispersity is inevitable in industrially produced polymers. Established theories of polymer dynamics and rheology, however, were mostly built on monodisperse linear polymers. Dynamics of polydisperse polymers is yet to be fully explored…
A coarse-grained molecular simulation approach originally developed for entangled polymeric liquids is extended to model the mechanical behavior of long-fiber networks. The model, based on the slip-link picture of chain entanglements,…
We report on a computational study of the statics and dynamics of long flexible linear polymers that spontaneously knot and unknot. Specifically, the equilibrium self-entanglement properties, such as the knotting probability, knot length…
Predicting the large-amplitude deformations of thin elastic sheets is difficult due to the complications of self-contact, geometric nonlinearities, and a multitude of low-lying energy states. We study a simple two-dimensional setting where…
Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the deformation behavior of disperse polymer melts by tracking test chains of length N = Mw, the weight average molecular weight, in melts of varying dispersity. At high strain…
Motivated by diverse phenomena in cellular biophysics, including bacterial flagellar motion and DNA transcription and replication, we study the overdamped nonlinear dynamics of a rotationally forced filament with twist and bend elasticity.…
Constitutive equations are derived for the viscoelastic response of rubbery polymers at finite strains. A polymer is thought of as a network of long chains connected to temporary junctions. At a random time, a chain detaches from a…
Simulations of knotting and unknotting in polymers or other filaments rely on random processes to facilitate topological changes. Here we introduce a method of \textit{topological steering} to determine the optimal pathway by which a…
Numerical simulations of thin sheets undergoing large deformations are computationally challenging. Depending on the scenario, they may spontaneously buckle, wrinkle, fold, or crumple. Nature's thin tissues often experience significant…
When transported in confined geometries rigid fibers show interesting transport dynamics induced by friction with the top and bottom walls. Fiber flexibility causes an additional coupling between fiber deformation and transport and is…
Solutions of semiflexible polymers confined by repulsive planar walls are studied by density functional theory and Molecular Dynamics simulations, to clarify the competition between the chain alignment favored by the wall and the depletion…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
Current theories on the conformation and dynamics of unknotted and non-concatenated ring polymers in melt conditions describe each ring as a tree-like double-folded object. While evidence from simulations supports this picture on a single…
Changes in the dynamics of supported polymer films in comparison to bulk materials involve a complex convolution of effects, such as substrate interactions, roughness and compliance, in addition to film thickness. We consider molecular…
We construct a micromechanical version of an early model for topologically constrained polymers -- a 2D chain amongst point-like uncrossable obstacles -- which allows us to explicitly elucidate the role of topological forces beyond…
The interplay between non-trivial band topology and strong electronic correlations is a central challenge in modern condensed matter physics. We investigate this competition on a two-leg ladder model with a p-wave-like hybridisation between…