Berlin 2008 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Downloads | Hilfe

CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 34: POSTERS Polymerphysics

CPP 34.18: Poster

Donnerstag, 28. Februar 2008, 17:00–19:30, Poster A

MD Simulations of Sheared Polymer Brushes with Explicit Solvent — •Andre Galuschko, Torsten Kreer, Joachim Wittmer, and Joerg Baschnagel — Institut Charles Sadron, 6 rue Boussingault, F-67083 Strasbourg Cedex, France

Polymer brushes play an important role as lubricants in many technical applications, e.g. in hard disk drives or artificial joints [1]. They are furthermore believed to be crucial for minimizing friction between synovial joints [2], such as human knees or hips.

Using Molecular Dynamics simulations of a standard coarse grained model we study the lubrication properties of short chain polymer brushes. We extend further approaches (see, e.g. Refs.[3-5]), which have been performed without explicit solvent, to new simulations, where we now account for hydrodynamic interactions via including solvent molecules. We investigate the static properties of isolated and compressed brushes, and study the response of these systems to stationary and non-stationary external shear. This is done under variation of the molecular parameters, i.e. grafting density and chain length. By comparing to previous simulation results of the same model without explicit solvent, we aim at understanding the role of hydrodynamic interactions in polymer brush lubrication.

[1] T. Moro et al., Nat. Mater. 3, 829 (2004).

[2] J. Klein, Proc. IMechE J 220, 691 (2006).

[3] G.S. Grest, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4979 (1996).

[4] P.S. Doyle et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1182 (1997).

[5] T. Kreer et al., Langmuir 17, 7804 (2001).