Simulation of bulk, confined, and polydisperse systems. II. Application to chain systems

By employing the Massieu formalism presented in the preceding paper, Monte Carlo methods and extrapolation techniques are combined to simulate polymers with chain-length polydispersity. Semigrand canonical and grand canonical ensembles supplemented by identity exchange moves and expanded-ensemble moves have been tailored to simulate both thermodynamic properties and the structure of various coarse-grained model systems. It is demonstrated that the proposed methods can be used to simulate systems with arbitrary molecular weight distribution (e.g., to match experimental data), bulk-pore partitioning of polymer solutions, and liquid-liquid equilibrium of polydisperse polymer melts. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.