Search results for "THERMODYNAMICS"
showing 10 items of 2774 documents
Dilute and semi dilute solutions of block copolymers in water, near-critical and super-critical CO2: a small angle scattering study of the monomer–ag…
2002
Abstract Small angle neutron (SANS) and X-ray (SAXS) Scattering measurements on aggregate formation of block copolymers in water and in near-critical and supercritical CO2 are reported here. Time Resolved SAXS (TR-SAXS) has also been performed in the supercritical region. Experiments have been carried out for a series of different thermodynamic conditions, changing the solvent density by profiling the pressure at constant temperature. A sharp transition between monomers dissolved as random coils and micelles characterized by a solvo-philic shell and a solvo-phobic core occurs when the solvent density reaches the critical micellization value. This is easily shown in the case of scCO2.
Combined SANS and SAXS experiments in polyolefins-hydrogenated oligocyclopentadiene (HOCP) blends
1998
Abstract Lamellar morphology in semicrystyalline polymer blends (iPP/HOCP and HDPE/HOCP) is investigated by means of Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) and Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS). The investigated blends present a complex phase diagram, as they show a miscibility gap. SAXS scattering curves of blends lying outside the miscibility gap can be analysed in the frame of the psuedo two phase model. In order to describe the complex morphology of blends lying inside the miscibility gap, the SANS technique revealed necessary. In this paper a novel method to describe the morphology of these complex systems by means of SANS is presented.
A Hooke's law-based approach to protein folding rate
2014
Kinetics is a key aspect of the renowned protein folding problem. Here, we propose a comprehensive approach to folding kinetics where a polypeptide chain is assumed to behave as an elastic material described by the Hooke[U+05F3]s law. A novel parameter called elastic-folding constant results from our model and is suggested to distinguish between protein with two-state and multi-state folding pathways. A contact-free descriptor, named folding degree, is introduced as a suitable structural feature to study protein-folding kinetics. This approach generalizes the observed correlations between varieties of structural descriptors with the folding rate constant. Additionally several comparisons am…
Critical phenomena at surfaces
1990
Abstract The presence of free surfaces adds a rich and interesting complexity to critical phenomena associated with phase transitions occurring in bulk materials. We shall review Monte Carlo computer simulation studies of surface critical behavior in simple cubic Ising- and XY-models with nearest-neighbor interactions J in the bulk and Js at the surface. These studies allow the identification of various critical exponents and critical amplitude ratios involving both the critical behavior of local quantities and of surface excess corrections to the bulk. We consider both the “ordinary” transition (surface criticality controlled by the bulk) and the “special transition” (a multicritical point…
Structure and dynamics of yukawa systems
1993
Abstract Results of molecular dynamics simulations modelling two component charge stabilized colloidal particles interacting via a Yukawa potential are presented. After cooling, the systems freeze into either substitutionally disordered imperfect crystals or into glasslike states. This freezing is characterized by the divergence of a suitable correlation time due to loss of ergodicity. Describing the structure by bond correlation functions, local orientational ordering is observed in the glassy states which is not present in the liquid. In the liquid the diffusion constant obeys an Arrhenius law. As can be deduced from the van Hove functions, in the crystal the particles only oscillate arou…
Theory of the evaporation/condensation transition of equilibrium droplets in finite volumes
2003
Abstract A phenomenological theory of phase coexistence of finite systems near the coexistence curve that occurs in the thermodynamic limit is formulated for the generic case of d-dimensional ferromagnetic Ising lattices of linear dimension L with magnetization m slightly less than mcoex. It is argued that in the limit L→∞ an unconventional first-order transition occurs at a characteristic value mt
Entropy flux in non-equilibrium thermodynamics
2004
Abstract An important problem in thermodynamics is the link between the entropy flux and the heat flux, for phenomena far from equilibrium. As an illustration we consider here the case of a rigid heat conductor subject to heating. The expression of the entropy flux is determined by the expressions of the evolution equations of the basic variables. It is shown that the coefficient relating entropy and heat fluxes differs far from equilibrium from the inverse of the non-equilibrium temperature θ . The particular case in which these two quantities are identical is examined in detail. A simple but intuitive physical illustration of the results is proposed. A comparison with information theory i…
Statistical mechanics characterization of spatio-compositional inhomogeneity
2009
On the basis of a model system of pillars built of unit cubes, a two-component entropic measure for the multiscale analysis of spatio-compositional inhomogeneity is proposed. It quantifies the statistical dissimilarity per cell of the actual configurational macrostate and the theoretical reference one that maximizes entropy. Two kinds of disorder compete: i) the spatial one connected with possible positions of pillars inside a cell (the first component of the measure), ii) the compositional one linked to compositions of each local sum of their integer heights into a number of pillars occupying the cell (the second component). As both the number of pillars and sum of their heights are conser…
Thermodynamic potentials for the infinite range Ising model with strong coupling
2003
Abstract The specific Gibbs free energy has been calculated for the infinite range Ising model with fixed and finite interaction strength. The model shows a temperature driven first-order phase transition that differs from the infinite ranged Ising model with weak coupling. In the temperature-field phase diagram the strong coupling model shows a line of first-order phase transitions that does not end in a critical point.
Integral relations, a simplified method to find interfacial resistivities for heat and mass transfer.
2007
International audience; Integral relations were used to predict interface film transfer coefficients for evaporation and condensation. According to these, all coefficients can be calculated for one-component systems, using the thermal resistivity and the enthalpy profile through the interface. The expressions were verified in earlier work using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations for argon-like particles, which interacted with a short-range Lennard-Jones (LJ) spline potential, which becomes zero at about 1.7 times the LJ-diameter. In this paper we verify the validity of these relations for a long-range LJ spline potential which becomes zero at 2.5 times the diameter. In an earlie…