Presidential Young Investigator Award

本研究的目的是从底层聚合物和结构域微观结构的角度研究聚合物液晶（plc）的动力学和流动行为。plc是高度有序的聚合物溶液和熔体，具有有用的各向异性光学和机械性能，受到加工的强烈影响。流动过程和微观结构之间的耦合本身决定了最终的力学和光学性能，需要加以阐明和量化。为了更好地理解瞬态流动中非平衡微观结构与宏观流变之间的关系，将使用三种技术来检查和模拟这些复杂流体的行为：(a)流变学；(b)二色和双折射；(c)在大型并行计算机上进行非平衡分子动力学模拟，以模拟和理解实验。在大多数PLC产品制造过程中，PLC系统在瞬态流动下的动态行为是令人感兴趣的。

The goal of this research is to examine the dynamics and flow behavior of Polymeric Liquid Crystals (PLCs) in terms of the underlying polymer and domain microstructure. PLCs are highly ordered polymer solutions and melts with useful anisotropic optical and mechanical properties strongly influenced by processing. This coupling between flow processing and the microstructure, which itself determines the final mechanical and optical properties, is to be elucidated and quantified. To better understand the relationships between the nonequilibrium microstructure and the macroscopic rheology in transient flows, three techniques will be used to examine and model the behavior of these complex fluids: (a) Rheometry; (b) Dichroism and birefringence; (c) Nonequilibrium molecular dynamic simulations on massive parallel computers, to model and understand the experiments. The dynamical behavior of PLC systems under transient flow is of interest in most PLC product fabrication processes.