(290e) Molecular Modeling of Entanglements in Macromolecules by Using a Coarse-Grained Slip-Link Model

Tube models have been the dominant paradigm in entangled polymers for the past thirty years. However, slip-link models are growing in popularity because of their ability to make quantitative rheological predictions, their strong connection to coarse graining atomistic simulations, and their ability to make analytic predictions for many chain conformation statistics. In fact, nearly all known rheological observations are predicted quantitatively by a consistently unconstrained Brownian slip-link model, without resorting to fitting parameters. The exception is transient uniaxial elongational flows, which will be examined here. We will also show how recent predictions for the statistics of the primitive-path length by atomistic simulations are predicted by the same model. These analytic results are useful for modeling and interpreting the relaxation of branched polymers in entangled environments.