2024/06/20 by Setarehalsadat Changizrezaei, Mikko Karttunen, Changizrezaei, Setarehalsadat +3
Engineering · #3D Printing in Biomedical Research #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.14741
openalex publication_date 2024/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We use lattice-Boltzmann molecular dynamics (LBMD) simulations to study the compression of a confined polymer immersed in a fluid and pushed by a large spherical colloid with a diameter comparable to the channel width. We examined the chain's deformation with both purely repulsive and weakly attractive Lennard-Jones (LJ) potentials applied between the monomers. The sphere's velocity was varied over 3 orders of magnitude. The chain is in a non-dense state at low pushing velocities for both repulsive and attractive monomer interactions. When the velocity of the spherical colloid exceeds a threshold v^*, the back end of the chain transitions to a high density state with low mean square monomer displacement (MSD) values. The front end, however, remains in a non-dense state with high MSD indicating a pseudo two-state coexistence. This crossover is also revealed through volume per monomer and MSD as a function of the sphere's velocity. We also studied polymer dynamics by investigating folding events at different times.