Related papers: Elastic properties of polycatenane chains and ribb…
The mechanical resistance of a polyethylene strand subject to tension and the way its properties are affected by the presence of a knot is studied using first-principles molecular dynamics calculations. The distribution of strain energy for…
Topological entanglements in polymers are mimicked by sliding rings (slip-links) which enforce pair contacts between monomers. We study the force-extension curve for linear polymers in which slip-links create additional loops of variable…
Aiming at the mechanical properties of cross-linked biopolymers, we set up and analyze a model of two weakly bending wormlike chains subjected to a tensile force, with regularly spaced inter-chain bonds (cross-links) represented by harmonic…
This study focuses on comparing the individual polymer chain dynamics in an entangled polymeric liquid under different shear and extension rates. Polymer chains under various shear rates and extension rates were simulated using a…
This paper discusses the elastic behavior of a single polyelectrolyte chain. A simple scaling analysis as in self avoiding walk chains are not possible, because three interplaying relevant length scales are involved, i.e., the Debye…
The shape of a polymer plays an important role in determining its interactions with other molecules and with the environment, and is in turn affected by both of them. As a consequence, in the literature the shape properties of a chain in…
Force versus extension curves measure entropic elasticity of single polymer chain in force spectroscopy experiments. A Worm-like Chain model is used to describe force extension experiments with an intrinsic chain parameter called…
The stretchability of polymeric materials is critical to many applications such as stretchable electronics and soft robotics, yet the stretchability of conventional cross-linked linear polymers is limited by the entanglements between…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we examine the dynamics of a family of model polymers with varying chain length and torsional potential barriers. We focus on features of the dynamics of polymers that are seen experimentally but absent…
A polymer network fractures by breaking covalent bonds, but the experimentally measured strength of the polymer network is orders of magnitude lower than the strength of covalent bonds. We investigate the effect of statistical variation of…
Single-chain elasticity of polyethylene at $\theta$ point up to 90% of stretching with respect to its contour length is computed by Monte-Carlo simulation of an atomistic model in continuous space. The elasticity law together with the…
A formula is derived for stiffness of a polymer chain in terms of the distribution function of end-to-end vectors. This relationship is applied to calculate the stiffness of Gaussian chains (neutral and carrying electric charges at the…
The statistical mechanics of a ribbon polymer made up of two semiflexible chains is studied using both analytical techniques and simulation. The system is found to have a crossover transition at some finite temperature, from a type of short…
We explore the transport features of a single flexible polymer chain that walks on a periodic ratchet potential coupled with spatially varying temperature. At steady state the polymer exhibits a fast unidirectional motion where the…
Entanglement of polymer chains is ubiquitous in elastomers, gels, and biological tissues. While the effects of chain entanglement on elasticity and viscoelasticity of polymer networks have been intensively studied, it remains elusive how…
We present Monte Carlo computer simulations for melts of semiflexible randomly knotted and randomly concatenated ring polymers on the fcc lattice and in slit confinement. Through systematic variation of the slit width at fixed melt density,…
It is common to study polymer physics through the use of idealized single-chain models, and the most popular of these is the freely jointed chain model. In certain thermodynamic ensembles, statistical mechanical treatment of this model is…
We study the interplay between entropy and topological constraints for a polymer chain in which sliding rings (slip-links) enforce pair contacts between monomers. These slip-links divide a closed ring polymer into a number of sub-loops…
We have used kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to study the kinetics of unfolding of cross-linked polymer chains under mechanical loading. As the ends of a chain are pulled apart, the force transmitted by each crosslink increases until it…
We study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to…