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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: September 26, 2016
Orientational order and topological defects in a dilute solutions of rodlike polymers at low Reynolds number
L Puggioni1,2, S Musacchio1
1Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, <a href="https://ror.org/048tbm396">Università degli Studi di Torino</a>, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Turin, Italy.
Abstract:
The relationship between the polymer orientation and the chaotic flow, in a dilute solution of rigid rodlike polymers at low Reynolds number, is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. It is found that the rods tend to align with the velocity field in order to minimize the friction with the solvent fluid, while regions of rotational disorder are related to strong vorticity gradients, and therefore to the chaotic flow. The "turbulent-like" behavior of the system is therefore associated with the emergence and interaction of topological defects of the mean director field, similarly to active nematic turbulence. The analysis has been carried out in both two and three spatial dimensions.
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