PERSISTENCE LENGTHS OF AROMATIC POLYAMIDES - A COMPUTER-SIMULATION APPROACH

A range of polyamides has been modelled using Monte Carlo routines bas ed on carefully determined bond-rotation potentials, bond length and b ond angle. For each polymer type, a large number of chains has been bu ilt for different simulated temperatures, and the persistence lengths determined as an average over all models for a given set of conditions . The simulations predict mesogenicity of aromatic polyamides to be sm aller than that of equivalent aromatic polyesters, while the experimen tal values of persistence length obtained from polyamides in solution are large on account of the strong bonding between polymer and solvent .