Coarse Grained End Bridging Monte Carlo Simulations of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Melt

Abstract

Coarse-grained interaction potentials for poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) have been developed using the concept of potential of mean force and employing results of atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of ethylene terephthalate dimer. The end bridging Monte Carlo method has been adopted to handle coarse-grained PET chains. The resulting method permits for thorough, multiscale equilibration of a 100-mer PET melt, and is applicable to a wide range of industrially important polymers. The coarse-grained melt density, characteristic ratio and other conformational properties agree with experiment. Topological analyses of the melt using the CReTA and Z algorithms reveal that the melt is also well equilibrated with respect to entanglement density.