The project's main results can be summarized as follows:
Polyolefins of carefully controlled and characterized molecular architecture have been synthesized and processed in industrial equipment. This work has served as a basis for the modelling effort.
The first steps towards a systematic methodology for the determination of zero-shear rate viscosity of polymeric fluids have been taken. It has been possible, for the first time to the partners' knowledge, to predict the viscosity and stress-optical law coefficient of high molecular weight fluids from atomistic simulations.
At the next level in the modelling hierarchy, several models for polymer dynamics in the melt or entangled regime have been developed, together with efficient numerical schemes that make it possible to perform realistic flow calculations.
Two new, highly efficient methods to perform micro-macro calculations in com plex geometries have been developed. They are dramatically faster and more accurate than the first-generation CONNFFESSIT, which was the only method available at the start of the project.
Additionally, some of these methods have been ported to advanced computer architectures, so that large-scale calculations are progressively becoming routine.
MPFLOW represented an ambitious first step that attempted to carry out the pro-gramme of spanning the gap between polymer molecular architecture and macro-scopic flow calculations. Although the huge gap in time and length scales between the atomistic and macroscopic worlds is still there, the project has shown a possible way to reduce it. We are still quite far away from the ability to predict polymer behaviour in processing operations from molecular architecture, but we have taken a major step towards it.