Theoretical and Numerical Investigation of Polymer-Particle Nanocomposites and their Effective Materials Properties

摘要

Polymer paniculate nanocomposites (PNCs) have many industrial and military applications. They can achieve very high mechanical modulus and possess superior transport or barrier properties. The project aimed to study the mesoscopic structure formation during flow processing and the corresponding rheological consequence leading to characterization of material properties in solid states. Significant progress has been made to model the materials and to understand their rheological properties in melt or solution processing during the project year. In addition, the anisotropic molecular configuration in bent- core liquid crystals and its impact to the macroscopic material properties are investigated; applications of the modeling and numerical tools developed for complex fluids are used to important biological applications.