TY - JOUR
T1 - Orientational cross correlations between entangled branch polymers in primitive chain network simulations
AU - Masubuchi, Yuichi
AU - Pandey, Ankita
AU - Amamoto, Yoshifumi
AU - Uneyama, Takashi
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Professor Alexei Likhtman for his valuable comments on this study. This work is supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) (No. 17H01152) from JSPS and by the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program, “Structural Materials for Innovation” from JST.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Author(s).
PY - 2017/11/14
Y1 - 2017/11/14
N2 - Although it has not been frequently discussed, contributions of the orientational cross-correlation (OCC) between entangled polymers are not negligible in the relaxation modulus. In the present study, OCC contributions were investigated for 4- and 6-arm star-branched and H-branched polymers by means of multi-chain slip-link simulations. Owing to the molecular-level description of the simulation, the segment orientation was traced separately for each molecule as well as each subchain composing the molecules. Then, the OCC was calculated between different molecules and different subchains. The results revealed that the amount of OCC between different molecules is virtually identical to that of linear polymers regardless of the branching structure. The OCC between constituent subchains of the same molecule is significantly smaller than the OCC between different molecules, although its intensity and time-dependent behavior depend on the branching structure as well as the molecular weight. These results lend support to the single-chain models given that the OCC effects are embedded into the stress-optical coefficient, which is independent of the branching structure.
AB - Although it has not been frequently discussed, contributions of the orientational cross-correlation (OCC) between entangled polymers are not negligible in the relaxation modulus. In the present study, OCC contributions were investigated for 4- and 6-arm star-branched and H-branched polymers by means of multi-chain slip-link simulations. Owing to the molecular-level description of the simulation, the segment orientation was traced separately for each molecule as well as each subchain composing the molecules. Then, the OCC was calculated between different molecules and different subchains. The results revealed that the amount of OCC between different molecules is virtually identical to that of linear polymers regardless of the branching structure. The OCC between constituent subchains of the same molecule is significantly smaller than the OCC between different molecules, although its intensity and time-dependent behavior depend on the branching structure as well as the molecular weight. These results lend support to the single-chain models given that the OCC effects are embedded into the stress-optical coefficient, which is independent of the branching structure.
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U2 - 10.1063/1.5001960
DO - 10.1063/1.5001960
M3 - Article
C2 - 29141414
AN - SCOPUS:85034229754
VL - 147
JO - Journal of Chemical Physics
JF - Journal of Chemical Physics
SN - 0021-9606
IS - 18
M1 - 184903
ER -