Micro-Macro Modeling of Polymeric Fluids with Multi-Bead Polymer Chain

Abstract: This work extends the classical dumbbell (two-bead) model of polymer chains to a more detailed multi-bead representation, where each polymer chain consists of $N$ beads connected by $N-1$ springs. We develop a thermodynamically consistent micro-macro model based on the energy variational method to describe the coupled dynamics of polymer configurations and fluid flow. The resulting framework captures complex microscopic behaviors, such as bond stretching and alignment under flow, and links them to macroscopic stress responses.