Elastic properties of polymer networks

Many fundamental questions for the understanding of polymer melts and networks are more suitably addressed by current computer simulations than by experiments. The reason is that simulations have simultaneous access to the microscopic structure and the macroscopic behavior of well-defined model systems. The coarse-grained models used often bear little relation to actual chemical species. This is justified by the experimentally established universality of polymer dynamics and no limitation for the test and development of theories which are directed at these universal aspects. The difficulties already encountered on this level will be illustrated for entanglements between polymers which dominate the dynamic in dense systems. For practical purposes it would, of coarse, be desirable to predict the characteristic length and time scales of experimental systems from the chemical structure of the polymer chains. Due to the extremely long relaxation times it is impossible to achieve this in brute-force simulations of truely microscopic models. Systematic coarse-graining combined with a better theoretical understanding seem to offer a practical alternative.