Paper Number
PG26 

Session
Polyelectrolytes, Self-assembling Systems & Gels

Title
Determination of viscoelastic properties of polymer networks using probe rheology simulations

Presentation Date and Time
October 18, 2018 (Thursday) 10:50

Track / Room
Track 3 / Bellaire

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Islam, Rafikul (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)
  2. Valadez-Perez, Nestor (Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering)
  3. Indei, Tsutomu (Hokkaido University, Global Station for Soft Matter)
  4. Schieber, Jay D. (Illinois Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering)
  5. Khare, Rajesh (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Rafikul Islam1, Nestor Valadez-Perez2, Tsutomu Indei3, Jay D. Schieber2, and Rajesh Khare1
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; 2Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL; 3Global Station for Soft Matter, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

Speaker / Presenter 
Islam, Rafikul

Text of Abstract
The ability to determine viscoelastic moduli of polymer gels is important for many practical applications, such as tissue engineering. Previously, we showed that the probe rheology simulation technique in conjunction with continuum theory can predict viscoelastic properties of unentangled and weakly entangled polymer melts. In this study, we apply the probe rheology simulation technique to unentangled and entangled cross-linked polymer networks. Specifically, active and passive probe rheology simulations are performed on the coarse-grained models of polymer network systems of varying strand length. The inertial generalized Stokes-Einstein relation (IGSER) is used to relate the probe particle motion to viscoelastic properties of the medium. Results obtained from active and passive probe rheology simulations are compared with those obtained by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations. Also, the probe particle motion measured in the passive rheology simulations and viscoelastic moduli obtained by probe rheology simulations are discussed in the context of interplay of probe particle size, network mesh size, and entanglement tube diameter. Our results show that active and passive probe rheology simulations can be used in conjunction with the IGSER formalism to predict the viscoelastic properties of polymer network systems.