The details of polymer behavior are of importance in a variety of fields -- for example, in aerospace or nanotechnology, as demonstrated by the increasing use of polymer composites as strong, light-weight building materials. The study of polymer fluids lends itself well to computational methods, as indicated by the vast number of successful studies which have already been performed to this day, using numerical methods such as Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo, self-consistent field theory, dynamic density functional theory, Ginzburg-Landau theory, and Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD).

Examples of Ongoing Research Projects

• Viscoelastic phase separation in both bulk and thin film systems.
• The effects of nanoparticles on phase separation in immiscible polymer blends, in both bulk and thin film systems.
• Polymers in poisueille flow.

Resources

• 20 node, 3.06 GHz Pentium-4 Beowulf cluster.
• Access to a variety of medium to large scale computer clusters.

For more information, please contact Dr. Mohamed Laradji at mlaradji@memphis.edu or visit his website.

Above: Snapshot from a DPD computer simulation of a binary, immiscible polymer blend in thin film form.

Below: Time sequence of a phase separating polymer blend from a DPD computer simulation.