Monte Carlo simulation of homopolymer melts in plane Poiseuille flow

A special biased Monte Carlo algorithm is used to study flow of homopolymer melts between neutral, hard walls on a fcc lattice at full occupancy (phi = 1). A random number biasing technique is developed to mimic slot flow of a melt; the biasing method preferentially moves the chains in the direction of flow. System properties including velocity profiles, chain-end density distributions, average radii of gyration, and end-to-end vector order param eters are investigated as functions of chain length and biasing parameter. Chain connectivity leads to non-Newtonian flow behavior evidenced as veloci ty profile blunting. Observation suggests a relationship between the logari thm of the biasing parameter and the pressure drop. Based on the prescribed biasing profile, it is shown that flow causes greater chain deformation fo r longer chains (N = 64,256) than for smaller chains (N = 16). Findings als o include the ordering of chains with end-to-end vectors aligned with respe ct to the flow direction. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-96 06(00)50812-5].