Title:
ATOMISTIC SIMULATIONS OF ATACTIC POLYPROPYLENE: INITIAL GUESS OPTIMIZATION AND LONG-RANGE CORRECTION EVALUATION

dc.contributor.advisor Ludovice, Peter J.
dc.contributor.advisor Meredith, J. Carson
dc.contributor.advisor Grover, Martha A.
dc.contributor.author Trevino Garrido, Nohemi Dxandi
dc.contributor.department Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
dc.date.accessioned 2022-01-14T16:07:33Z
dc.date.available 2022-01-14T16:07:33Z
dc.date.created 2021-12
dc.date.issued 2021-10-01
dc.date.submitted December 2021
dc.date.updated 2022-01-14T16:07:33Z
dc.description.abstract It was shown by this research, that after about 75% of initial guess chain polymerization, chains would began to collapse into compact conformations due to the self-avoiding nature of the chains. This resulted in structural inaccuracies in the initial guess that would not be ameliorated by energy minimization or molecular dynamics. Thus, the effect of density on the structural and energetic components of initial guess generation was investigated in this research. Findings showed significant asymmetry in chains generated with the present established initial guess method. Additionally, cohesive energy density, diffusivity, and entanglement of atomistic models of atactic polypropylene are strongly sensitive to density changes and were improved at densities that were even higher than the experimental density. However, there were only slight changes to structural properties such as mean square radius of gyration, the characteristic ratio, and chain symmetry as density was modified. Additional initial guess methods were developed such as integrating minimization into the polymerization process, filtration of initial guesses based on their structural properties, multi-step minimization, an expanding periodic boundary method, and optimization of forcefield parameters for initial guess generation. Additionally, a simple, rapid, and empirical method was developed for calculating energy and pressure long-range corrections. This method involved iteratively replicating the periodic lattice of the polymer system and matching the cutoff to the new size of the system. Thus, the potential energy is dependent on the number of cells in the lattice and the potential energy eventually converged to provide the long-range corrections. The cohesive energy also converged since the isolated energy of the chains is a constant value and could thus also be rapidly calculated.
dc.description.degree M.S.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/66063
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject atactic
dc.subject polypropylene
dc.subject polystyrene
dc.subject chain collapse
dc.subject molecular modelling
dc.subject atomistic
dc.subject coarse-grain
dc.subject initial guess
dc.subject forcefield
dc.subject molecular dynamics
dc.subject energy minimization
dc.subject block copolymer
dc.subject directed self-assembly
dc.subject simulations
dc.subject density
dc.subject long-range correction
dc.subject virial
dc.subject pressure
dc.subject Ewald Sum
dc.subject Multipole Expansion
dc.title ATOMISTIC SIMULATIONS OF ATACTIC POLYPROPYLENE: INITIAL GUESS OPTIMIZATION AND LONG-RANGE CORRECTION EVALUATION
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Ludovice, Peter J.
local.contributor.advisor Meredith, J. Carson
local.contributor.advisor Grover, Martha A.
local.contributor.corporatename School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 380991df-a9bc-4529-a2b3-e34ceca3e186
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication b7e217bc-d8fe-480b-8b55-5c2571986a3a
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication d6e9a407-2031-4864-8232-15ac32d56de3
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
thesis.degree.level Masters
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