https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2006-10220-0
Regular Article
Hydrodynamic screening of star polymers in shear flow
Institut für Festkörperforschung, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany
* e-mail: m.ripoll@fz-juelich.de
Received:
14
December
2006
Accepted:
20
June
2007
Published online:
22
August
2007
The mutual effects of the conformations of a star polymer in simple shear flow and the deformation of the solvent flow field are investigated by a hybrid mesoscale simulation technique. We characterize the flow field near the star polymer as a function of its functionality (arm number) f . A strong screening of the imposed flow is found inside the star polymer, which increases with increasing f . To elucidate the importance of hydrodynamic screening, we compare results for hydrodynamic and random solvents. The dependence of the polymer orientation angle on the Weissenberg number shows a power law behavior with super-universal exponent --independent of hydrodynamic and excluded-volume interactions. In contrast, the polymer rotation frequency changes qualitatively when hydrodynamic interactions are switched on.
PACS: 82.20.Wt Computational modelling; simulation – / 83.50.-v Deformation and flow – / 66.20.+d Viscosity of liquids; diffusive momentum transport –
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag, 2007
