Dynamics of bottlebrush polymers in flowing solutions

Over the past decade, bottlebrush polymers have emerged as an attractive
building block for the design and manufacture of self-assembled hierarchical
soft materials. While it is currently possible to synthesize
bottlebrushes with a wide range of chemical architecture and accompanying
morphologies, their control during the fabrication process pose numerous
challenges for development of next generation soft materials. To address these
challenges, we need to understand the dynamics of bottlebrush polymers in
out-of-equilibrium conditions.

In this talk, we will focus on two canonical nonequilibrium situations -- that
of shear flow and planar extensional flow. We will present results for
conformational dynamics and rheological properties using Brownian Dynamics
simulations. We model a bottlebrush as a bead-spring system, where every
backbone monomer have several side chains attached to it. Hydrodynamic
interaction between the beads is accounted for via the consistent averaging
method developed earlier in our group. We vary the backbone length as well as
the length of the side chains, while keeping the degree of branching fixed.
Finally, we compare our simulation results with experimental data for brushes
with polynorborne backbone and polylactic acid side chains.