https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2013-13056-5
Regular Article
Brownian dynamics simulations of confined tethered polymers in shear flow: the effect of attractive surfaces
1
Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, México D.F, México
2
H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, BS8 1TL, Bristol, UK
* e-mail: ibaga@ciencias.unam.mx
Received:
3
July
2012
Revised:
4
December
2012
Accepted:
7
May
2013
Published online:
30
May
2013
Coarse grain Brownian dynamics simulations of the bead-spring model are used to investigate the effect of attractive surfaces on the stretching of confined tethered polymers under shear flow. The weak and strong adsorbed regimes have been addressed by means of a coarse grain van der Waals potential to simulate polymer substrate interactions. Different stationary cyclic dynamics are observed upon varying shear flow intensity and surface potential strength. Polymer stretching decreases as increasing the attractive potential strength, breaking down the scaling predictions for non-adsorbed polymers. We found that adsorption is enhanced by the shear flow strength in agreement to simulations of adsorbed non-tethered polymers.
Key words: Soft Matter: Polymers and Polyelectrolytes
© EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013