Systematic and simulation-free coarse graining of homopolymer melts: A structure-based study
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1370 (United States)
We propose a systematic and simulation-free strategy for coarse graining of homopolymer melts, where each chain of N{sub m} monomers is uniformly divided into N segments, with the spatial position of each segment corresponding to the center-of-mass of its monomers. We use integral-equation theories suitable for the study of equilibrium properties of polymers, instead of many-chain molecular simulations, to obtain the structural and thermodynamic properties of both original and coarse-grained (CG) systems, and quantitatively examine how the effective pair potentials between CG segments and the thermodynamic properties of CG systems vary with N. Our systematic and simulation-free strategy is much faster than those using many-chain simulations, thus effectively solving the transferability problem in coarse graining, and provides the quantitative basis for choosing the appropriate N-values. It also avoids the problems caused by finite-size effects and statistical uncertainties in many-chain simulations. Taking the simple hard-core Gaussian thread model [K. S. Schweizer and J. G. Curro, Chem. Phys. 149, 105 (1990)] as the original system, we demonstrate our strategy applied to structure-based coarse graining, which is quite general and versatile, and compare in detail the various integral-equation theories and closures for coarse graining. Our numerical results show that the effective CG potentials for various N and closures can be collapsed approximately onto the same curve, and that structure-based coarse graining cannot give thermodynamic consistency between original and CG systems at any N < N{sub m}.
- OSTI ID:
- 22416087
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 142, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Accurate coarse-grained models for mixtures of colloids and linear polymers under good-solvent conditions
Application of integral equation theory to polyolefin liquids and blends