SOME ASPECTS OF THEORY AND SIMULATIONS OF POLYMERS IN STEADY FLOWS

We present a study of various properties of bead spring chains in stea dy flows. The Langevin equation of the normal modes of the chain is so lved by Fourier transformation. From the resulting power spectrum, the autocorrelation functions of all configuration-dependent quantities c an be calculated. In equilibrium, the influence of the bead masses on the short-time dynamics is discussed. The influence of different flow fields (shear, elongational and Kramers potential flow) on the mean-sq uare chain dimension is calculated. A comparison with results obtained from non-equilibrium molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo calculations is made. Finally, the influence of shear flow on the configurational a nd rheological properties of cyclic polymers and on the excluded volum e behaviour of linear chains is examined.