New forcefield parameters for branched hydrocarbons.

A new set of united-atom force field parameters is proposed for simulating the phase equilibria of branched alkanes. These parameters complement the already existing set of Nath, Escobedo, and de Pablo revised (NERD) [Nath et al., J. Chem. Phys. 105, 4391 (1998); Nath and de Pablo, Mol. Phys. 98, 231 (2000)] force field parameters. The proposed force field is used to study vapor–liquid equilibria for various isomers of alkanes up to C[sub 8]. Results of simulations are found to be in good agreement with available experimental data. © 2001 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]