Activities & Events

Research

The overarching goal of all our activities is to model complex fluid behavior on different autonomous levels of description. By focusing on the essence of a problem, coarse graining provides understanding. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics is employed to establish the thermodynamic consistency of any proposed level of description ("second law" and beyond). Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics is tailored into a practical tool to relate material parameters on different levels by efficient and systematic computer simulations thus overcoming the problems associated with the existence of a wide range of time scales in complex fluids, in particular, polymeric liquids. We develop theoretical foundations in the context of relevant systems, most importantly:

• Entangled and unentangled polymer melts.
• Glasses as nonequilibrium systems, with an emphasis on flow behavior.
• Systems with interfaces and surfaces, in which two-dimensional and three-dimensional subsystems need to be coupled consistently ("boundary thermodynamics").
• Dissipative quantum systems.

Teaching

We prepare the students for continued learning and intellectual growth and develop the basic competences, with a solid grounding in scientific principles and methodology, where our core subjects are thermodynamics and statistical mechanics (including nonequilibrium systems).

An important mission for our group is the preparation of the students for the dramatically increasing use of computers in materials science and engineering. A further aim is that the students become familiar with the foundations of polymer physics.

Group Seminar

Polymer Physics _{Wednesday 10.15 a.m.} Seminar »»