Spherocylinders aspect ratio

Fig. 6.2 Isotropic-nematic phase coexistence for hard spherocylinders as a function of the inverse of the aspect ratio L/D...

In a variant of this model wc have reduced the size of the core, added an extra site to each chain to model the Si(Me)2-0-Si(Me)2 groups and extended the length of the spherocylinders used to giw an aspect ratio... 

FIGURE 3 The phase behaviour of 2D spherocylinders as a function of inverse aspect ratio D/L and density p [33]. The phases exhibited are isotropic (I), nematic (N) and crystal (Cr). 

Most theoretical studies of electrical percolation in composite systems with rodlike fillers assume that the particles are rigid, straight cylinders or spherocylinders. However, this assumption offers a poor description of some important composite systems. For example, electron microscopy studies have revealed that nanotubes embedded in a polymer matrix are generally curved or wavy, rather than straight, as observed in Figure 9. Several authors have conducted theoretical studies to probe the effect of filler waviness on the percolation threshold of composite materials.The percolation threshold was found to increase with inaeasing filler waviness, and this effect was more pronounced for smaller aspect ratios. However, the reported increase in the percolation threshold due to waviness is still small relative the wide spread of experimental threshold values for CNT/polymer composites. Simulations of CNT/ polymer composites also show that filler waviness lowers the composite conductivity. These studies were conducted for highly idealized systems, so the extent of this reduction is not well established. 

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