6533b86efe1ef96bd12cca7c
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Methods to Compute Pressure and Wall Tension in Fluids containing Hard Particles
Peter VirnauDebabrata DebDorothea WilmsAlexander WinklerKurt Bindersubject
Yield (engineering)Materials scienceStatistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)Tension (physics)Monte Carlo methodGeneral Physics and AstronomyFOS: Physical sciencesStatistical and Nonlinear PhysicsMechanicsHard spheresCondensed Matter - Soft Condensed MatterVirial theoremComputer Science ApplicationsSuspension (chemistry)Condensed Matter::Soft Condensed MatterComputational Theory and MathematicsSoft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)TensorAnisotropyMathematical PhysicsCondensed Matter - Statistical Mechanicsdescription
Colloidal systems are often modelled as fluids of hard particles (possibly with an additional soft attraction, e.g. caused by polymers also contained in the suspension). in simulations of such systems, the virial theorem cannot be straightforwardly applied to obtain the components of the pressure tensor. In systems confined by walls, it is hence also not straightforward to extract the excess energy due to the wall (the "wall tension") from the pressure tensor anisotropy. A comparative evaluation of several methods to circumvent this problem is presented, using as examples fluids of hard spheres and the Asakura-Oosawa model of colloid-polymer mixtures with a size ratio $q=0.15$ (for which the effect of the polymers can be integrated out to yield an effective attractive potential between the colloids). Factors limiting the accuracy of the various methods are carefully discussed, and controlling these factors very good mutual agreement between the various methods is found.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-10-07 |