Influences of three kinds of springs on the retraction of a polymer ellipsoid in dissipative particle dynamics simulation

✍ Scribed by Yong Liu; Ying An; Hua Yan; Changfeng Guan; Weimin Yang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 692 KB
• Volume: 48
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-6266
• DOI: 10.1002/polb.22149

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The impacts of Rouse spring, Fraenkel spring, and one kind of finitely extensible nonlinear elastic spring (FENE‐PM spring) on the surface tension‐induced retraction of a polymer ellipsoid in a matrix were compared using dissipative particle dynamics. Using the same spring constant, obvious differences among the three kinds of springs were found. A fast retraction process was observed from the hard Fraenkel spring, a slow process from the soft Rouse spring, and an intermediate process from the FENE‐PM spring. The effects of varying the spring constant and the chain length were also investigated. The results indicate that the influence of increasing spring hardness for a given spring type was significant; whereas, the influence of chain length was minor after five bonds were reached. The effects of varying the FENE‐PM r~m~ parameter were also studied to provide a reliable value for this study. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2010