Related papers: Onset of self-assembly
By combining molecular dynamics simulations and topological analyses with scaling arguments, we obtain analytic expressions that quantitatively predict the entanglement length $N_e$, the plateau modulus $G$, and the tube diameter $a$ in…
A self consistent field theory for compressible polymer mixtures is developed by introducing elements of classical density functional theory into the framework of the Helfand theory. It is then applied to study free surfaces of binary (A,B)…
In recent times some interesting field theoretical descriptions of the statistical mechanics of entangling polymers have been proposed by various authors. In these approaches, a single test polymer fluctuating in a background of static…
We visualize entanglements in polymer melts using molecular dynamics simulation. A bead at an entanglement interacts persistently for long times with the non-bonded beads (those excluding the adjacent ones in the same chain). The…
We propose a novel phase-field model to predict elastic microphase separation in polymer gels. To this end, we extend the Cahn-Hilliard free-energy functional to incorporate an elastic strain energy and a coupling term. These contributions…
We propose a continuum theory to model the Mullins effect, which is ubiquitously observed in polymer composites. In the theory, the softening of the materials during the stretching process is accounted for by considering the delamination of…
We present an analysis of a partially directed walk model of a polymer which at one end is tethered to a sticky surface and at the other end is subjected to a pulling force at fixed angle away from the point of tethering. Using the kernel…
The transport coefficients of dense polymeric fluids are approximately calculated from the microscopic intermolecular forces. The following finite molecular weight effects are discussed within the Polymer-Mode-Coupling theory (PMC) and…
We present a detailed account of a recently proposed phenomenological theory for noncatenated ring polymer melts (Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 167802 (2011)). A basic assumption lies in the implementation of the noncatenation constraint via the…
We describe some recent results concerning the statistical properties of a self-interacting polymer stretched by an external force. We concentrate mainly on the cases of purely attractive or purely repulsive self-interactions, but our…
We examine the thermally-induced fracture of an unstrained polymer chain of discrete segments coupled by an anharmonic potential by means of Molecular Dynamics simulation with a Langevin thermostat. Cases of both under- and over-damped…
We propose a unified scaling theory of entanglement entropy in the confinements of finite bond dimensions, dynamics and system sizes. Within the theory, the finite-entanglement scaling introduced recently is generalized to the dynamics…
We study a generic model of self-assembling chains which can branch and form networks with branching points (junctions) of arbitrary functionality. The physical realizations include physical gels, wormlike micells, dipolar fluids and…
The statistical mechanics of polymer loops entangled in the two-dimensional array of randomly distributed obstacles of infinite length is discussed. The area of the loop projected to the plane perpendicular to the obstacles is used as a…
We investigate, using numerical simulations and analytical arguments, a simple one dimensional model for the swelling or the collapse of a closed polymer chain of size N, representing the dynamical evolution of a polymer in a \Theta-solvent…
Analytical treatments of polymer dynamics have mostly been restricted to linear response theory around some steady state obtained via perturbative field theory. Here, I derive an analytical framework that yields unified access to the…
We study a blend of two kinds of homopolymers with tendency for segragation. Cross-links between the chains of different kinds do not allow macrophase separation. Instead microphase structure appears. Starting from a microscopic model we…
To study the cooling behavior and the glass transition of polymer melts in bulk and with free surfaces a coarse-grained weakly semi-flexible polymer model is developed. Based on a standard bead spring model with purely repulsive…
We study the evolution of nearest-neighbor entanglement in the one dimensional Ising model with an external transverse field. The system is initialized as the so called "thermal ground state" of the pure Ising model. We analyze properties…
Hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo simulations used to study melts of unentangled, thermoreversibly associating supramolecular polymers. In this first of a series of papers, we describe and validate a model that is effective in…