title: Additivity of the excess energy dissipation rate in a dynamically self-assembled system.
abstract: Despite its prevalence in biological systems and its promise as a route to adaptive and/or self-healing materials, dynamic self-assembly (DySA) far from thermodynamic equilibrium remains poorly understood. In this context, it is desirable to develop general thermodynamic relations describing the steady-state configurations of such dissipative assemblies. Here, numerical simulations and analytical methods are used to calculate the viscous energy dissipation rates in a prototypical, magnetohydrodynamic DySA system. In addition to the well-established criteria of mechanical equilibrium, it is shown that the naturally forming steady-state configurations/flows are characterized by a fundamentally different relation based on the viscous energy dissipation. Specifically, the total dissipation of the n-particle system may be expressed as a sum of pairwise "interactions" derived from the analogous two-particle system. This dissipation additivity holds despite the presence of many-body forces/torques between the particles and may prove useful in estimating the viscosities of colloidal suspensions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Konstantin V
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Tretiakov
authors.forename: Kyle J M
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Bishop
authors.forename: Bartosz A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Grzybowski
mesh_terms: D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008280:Magnetics; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry; D013499:Surface Properties; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014783:Viscosity
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids; D011108:Polymers