Molecular rheology of perfluoropolyether lubricant via nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation

Abstract

Molecular rheology of perfluoropolyether (PFPE) systems is particularly important in designing effective lubricants that control the friction and wear in tribological applications. Using the coarse-grained, bead-spring model, equilibrium molecular dynamics based on the Langevin equation in a quiescent flow was first employed to examine the nanostructure of PFPE. Further, by integrating the modified Langevin equation and imposing the Lees-Edwards boundary condition, nonequilibrium molecular dynamics of steady shear was investigated. We observe that the shear viscosity of PFPE system depends strongly on molecular architecture (e.g., molecular weight and endgroup functionality) and external conditions (e.g., temperature and shear rate). Our study of the flow activation energy/entropy and their correlations with nanostructure visualization showed that the PFPE structure was substantially modified.