On the accuracy of predicting shear viscosity of molecular liquids using the periodic perturbation method

Abstract

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are performed to calculate shear viscosities of 16 representative molecular liquids using the periodic perturbation method (PPM). A perturbation index is defined to measure the strength of the perturbation. It is identified that the predictions are systematically underestimated using PPM. The origin of the underestimate is the acoustic wave in the liquid density, which is persistent in the simulation box unless the perturbation is completely removed. However, there is a linear correlation between the perturbation indexes and the apparent viscosities, which can be utilized to accurately predict the shear viscosities. Finally, it is demonstrated that general force fields derived based on equilibrium properties can be used to predict the shear viscosities of small molecular liquids with relative errors less than 10%.