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On the friction and adhesion hysteresis between polymer brushes attached to curved surfaces: Rate and solvation effects

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  • Published: 30 June 2015
  • Volume 3, pages 148–160, (2015)
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On the friction and adhesion hysteresis between polymer brushes attached to curved surfaces: Rate and solvation effects
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  • Sissi de Beer1,2,
  • G. Djuidjé Kenmoé3 &
  • Martin H. Müser2 

  • 1164 Accesses

  • 16 Citations

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Abstract

Computer simulations of friction between polymer brushes are usually simplified compared to real systems in terms of solvents and geometry. In most simulations, the solvent is only implicit with infinite compressibility and zero inertia. In addition, the model geometries are parallel walls rather than curved or rough as in reality. In this work, we study the effects of these approximations and more generally the relevance of solvation on dissipation in polymer-brush systems by comparing simulations based on different solvation schemes. We find that the rate dependence of the energy loss during the collision of brush-bearing asperities can be different for explicit and implicit solvent. Moreover, the non-Newtonian rate dependences differ noticeably between normal and transverse motion, i.e., between head-on and off-center asperity collisions. Lastly, when the two opposing brushes are made immiscible, the friction is dramatically reduced compared to an undersaturated miscible polymer-brush system, irrespective of the sliding direction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science and Technology of Polymers, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P. O. Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, the Netherlands

    Sissi de Beer

  2. Jülich Supercomputing Centre Institute for Advanced Simulation FZ Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany

    Sissi de Beer & Martin H. Müser

  3. Department of Physics, Laboratory of Mechanics Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé, P. O. Box 812, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    G. Djuidjé Kenmoé

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  1. Sissi de Beer
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  2. G. Djuidjé Kenmoé
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  3. Martin H. Müser
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Correspondence to Martin H. Müser.

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This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Sissi de BEER. She obtained her PhD degree in the Physics of Complex Fluids Group of the University of Twente, the Netherlands, in 2011. Her PhD thesis describes atomic force microscopy experiments and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of confined simple liquids. From 2011 till 2013, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (Forschungszentrum Jülich) focusing on MD simulations to study polymer brush friction. Since November 2013, Sissi is a research associate in the Materials Science and Technology of Polymers Group of the University of Twente, where she now combines simulations with experimental techniques to understand the (tribo-)mechanical response and absorptive properties of polymer brushes in (bio-)technical applications.

Martin H. MÜSER. He received his diploma in physics from Saarland University, Germany, in 1992 and his Ph.D degree in theoretical physics from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 1995. He spent his postdoctoral time in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University and in the Physics & Astronomy Department at the Johns Hopkins University. In 2002, he became a professor of applied mathematics at Western University in London, Ontario. After a sabbatical year at IBM, T. J. Watson, New York, he moved to Saarland University in 2009, where he holds the chair of material simulations in the Department of Material Science and Technology. Since 2011, he also heads the Computational Materials Research Group at the Supercomputing Centre of Forschungszentrum Jülich.

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de Beer, S., Kenmoé, G.D. & Müser, M.H. On the friction and adhesion hysteresis between polymer brushes attached to curved surfaces: Rate and solvation effects. Friction 3, 148–160 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-015-0078-2

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  • Received: 27 January 2015

  • Revised: 06 March 2015

  • Accepted: 09 March 2015

  • Published: 30 June 2015

  • Issue Date: June 2015

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-015-0078-2

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Keywords

  • polymer brushes
  • biomimetic materials
  • molecular dynamics simulation
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