2017/02/14 by Nobuyuki Iwaoka, Hiroshi Takano
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · Engineering · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics
paper · doi:10.7566/jpsj.86.035002
The conformational fluctuations of a glassy short polymer melt are studied by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations and principal component analysis (PCA). The distribution of PCA eigenvalues, which measure static fluctuations of the polymers, shows a clear difference between above and below the conventional glass transition temperature Tg. The approximate conformational entropy of the polymers also indicates a transition near Tg. This is evidence that the static properties of polymers in the melt signal the glass transition.