Abstract
Full Paper: An algorithm is introduced which decomposes simulated polymer networks into meshes in order to permit an analysis of the entanglements of the network. The decomposition process intends to obtain the set of meshes most active during the deformation process. Optimizing both the choice of the spanning tree of the network and the order of adding chains to the tree, a decomposition is ...
Abstract
Full Paper: An algorithm is introduced which decomposes simulated polymer networks into meshes in order to permit an analysis of the entanglements of the network. The decomposition process intends to obtain the set of meshes most active during the deformation process. Optimizing both the choice of the spanning tree of the network and the order of adding chains to the tree, a decomposition is obtained, which only contains the smallest meshes necessary. By applying it to stimulated networks it is found that, especially for statistical networks, an optimization process is necessary to perform a valid entanglement analysis. [GRAPHICS] (a) Graph theoretical representation of a polymer network showing monomers (circles) and cross-linkers (squares). On mapping (b), the monomer chains are replaced by edges and dangling bonds have been removed.
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