[gmx-users] msd not linear and c.o.m removal

Jennifer Williams Jennifer.Williams at ed.ac.uk
Wed Sep 16 16:19:48 CEST 2009


Hi,

I am running simulations of gaseous molecules (CH4, C2H6, CO2, N2) in  
a silica pore (4nm in diameter), cell dimensions, 46 x 44 x 37. This  
in an infinite pore in the z direction.

I am interested in looking at diffusion but I am a bit concerned about  
the shape of my MSD curves, for a 5ns run, they start off fairly  
linear and then at around 2.5ns the slope stops being linear and  
levels out - in some cases the gradient goes to zero. So I am getting  
a curve rather than a straight line. This is the same whether or not I  
use the ?type z option in my command.

At the moment I take the fit the curve between 0.5 - 2.5ns and ignore  
the second curvy half of the graph but I'd like to know why this is  
happening-Is it because the statistics become poorer for longer runs  
or is there something fundamentaly wrong with my system?. Does anyone  
know why this is happening?

Another thing I am confused about is whether or not to remove the  
centre of mass when one is interested in obtaining the diffusion  
coefficient.  I have seen on the gromacs forum that linear centre of  
mass removal is OK but a colleague has advised me not to remove it  
when studying diffusion. What about when applying an acceleration to  
obtain transport diffusion coefficients? Is c.o.m removal then needed  
or not?

Currently, I am not using any centre of mass removal in my mdrun. Then  
I calculate the Ds to be

g_msd ?mol -type z -f traj.xtc -s md.tpr -o msd_z.xvg
D[       CO2] 140.5914 (+/- 75.9583) 1e-5 cm^2/s

However when I include the ?rmcomm command when I run g_msd I get a  
very different Ds.

g_msd -rmcomm -type z -mol -f traj.xtc -s md.tpr -o msd_z.xvg
D[       CO2] 0.0118 (+/- 0.0364) 1e-5 cm^2/s

It is difficult to say which value is correct as we don't have  
experimental data for comparison.

Has anyone got any advice on this? I have pasted my typical input files below

Much appreciated,


C2H6.itp

[ atomtypes ]
;   type    mass    charge    ptype       c6            c12
     CH3    15.034     0.00     A        0.3512        1.16236218

[ moleculetype ]
; name  nrexcl
ET          2

[ atoms ]
;   nr  type    resnr   residu  atom    cgnr    charge  mass
1       CH3     1       ET     CH3      1        0.000  15.03452
2       CH3     1       ET     CH3      1        0.000  15.03452

[ constraints ]
;  ai  aj funct           c0           c1
1       2       1          0.2353

[ exclusions ]
1     2
2     1

.mdp

; VARIOUS PREPROCESSING OPTIONS
; Preprocessor information: use cpp syntax.
; e.g.: -I/home/joe/doe -I/home/mary/hoe
include                  = -I../top
; e.g.: -DI_Want_Cookies -DMe_Too
define                   =

; RUN CONTROL PARAMETERS
integrator               = md
; Start time and timestep in ps
tinit                    = 0
dt                       = 0.001
nsteps                   = 5000000
; For exact run continuation or redoing part of a run
; Part index is updated automatically on checkpointing (keeps files separate)
simulation_part          = 1
init_step                = 0
; mode for center of mass motion removal
comm-mode                = none
; number of steps for center of mass motion removal
nstcomm                  = 1
; group(s) for center of mass motion removal
comm-grps                =

; LANGEVIN DYNAMICS OPTIONS
; Friction coefficient (amu/ps) and random seed
bd-fric                  = 0
ld-seed                  = 1993

; OUTPUT CONTROL OPTIONS
; Output frequency for coords (x), velocities (v) and forces (f)
nstxout                  = 1000
nstvout                  = 1000
nstfout                  = 1000
; Output frequency for energies to log file and energy file
nstlog                   = 1000
nstenergy                = 1000
; Output frequency and precision for xtc file
nstxtcout                = 1000
xtc-precision            = 1000
; This selects the subset of atoms for the xtc file. You can
; select multiple groups. By default all atoms will be written.
xtc-grps                 =
; Selection of energy groups
energygrps               =

; NEIGHBORSEARCHING PARAMETERS
; nblist update frequency
nstlist                  = 10
; ns algorithm (simple or grid)
ns_type                  = grid
; Periodic boundary conditions: xyz, no, xy
pbc                      = xyz
periodic_molecules       = yes
; nblist cut-off
rlist                    = 1.5

; OPTIONS FOR ELECTROSTATICS AND VDW
; Method for doing electrostatics
coulombtype              = PME
rcoulomb-switch          = 0
rcoulomb                 = 1.5
; Relative dielectric constant for the medium and the reaction field
epsilon-r                = 1
epsilon_rf               = 1
; Method for doing Van der Waals
vdw-type                 = Shift
; cut-off lengths
rvdw-switch              = 0.9
rvdw                     = 1.2
; Apply long range dispersion corrections for Energy and Pressure
DispCorr                 = EnerPres
; Extension of the potential lookup tables beyond the cut-off
table-extension          = 1
; Seperate tables between energy group pairs
energygrp_table          =
; Spacing for the PME/PPPM FFT grid
fourierspacing           = 0.12
; FFT grid size, when a value is 0 fourierspacing will be used
fourier_nx               = 0
fourier_ny               = 0
fourier_nz               = 0
; EWALD/PME/PPPM parameters
pme_order                = 4
ewald_rtol               = 1e-05
ewald_geometry           = 3d
epsilon_surface          = 0
optimize_fft             = yes

; IMPLICIT SOLVENT ALGORITHM
implicit_solvent         = No

; OPTIONS FOR WEAK COUPLING ALGORITHMS
; Temperature coupling
tcoupl                   = nose-hoover
; Groups to couple separately
tc-grps                  = System
; Time constant (ps) and reference temperature (K)
tau_t                    = 0.1
ref_t                    = 300

; Pressure coupling
Pcoupl                   = No
Pcoupltype               =
; Time constant (ps), compressibility (1/bar) and reference P (bar)
tau-p                    =
compressibility          =
ref-p                    =
; Scaling of reference coordinates, No, All or COM
refcoord_scaling         = no
; Random seed for Andersen thermostat
andersen_seed            =

; GENERATE VELOCITIES FOR STARTUP RUN
gen_vel                  = yes
gen_temp                 = 300
gen_seed                 = 173529

; OPTIONS FOR BONDS
constraints              = none
; Type of constraint algorithm
constraint-algorithm     = Lincs
; Do not constrain the start configuration
continuation             = no
; Use successive overrelaxation to reduce the number of shake iterations
Shake-SOR                = no
; Relative tolerance of shake
shake-tol                = 0.0001
; Highest order in the expansion of the constraint coupling matrix
lincs-order              = 4
; Number of iterations in the final step of LINCS. 1 is fine for
; normal simulations, but use 2 to conserve energy in NVE runs.
; For energy minimization with constraints it should be 4 to 8.
lincs-iter               = 1
; Lincs will write a warning to the stderr if in one step a bond
; rotates over more degrees than
lincs-warnangle          = 30
; Convert harmonic bonds to morse potentials
morse                    = no

; ENERGY GROUP EXCLUSIONS
; Pairs of energy groups for which all non-bonded interactions are excluded
energygrp_excl           =

; Non-equilibrium MD stuff
acc-grps                 =
accelerate               =
freezegrps               = MCM
freezedim                = Y Y Y
cos-acceleration         = 0
deform                   =

.top file


[ defaults ]
; nbfunc        comb-rule       gen-pairs       fudgeLJ fudgeQQ
1               2               no              1.0            1.0
;
;
[ atomtypes ]
;   type    mass    charge    ptype       c6            c12
     SI      28.08       1.28     A        0.000         0.00
     O       15.999     -0.64     A        0.2708        1.538176
     OH      15.999     -0.53     A        0.30          1.538176
     H        1.008      0.21     A        0.000         0.000

;
; Include forcefield parameters
#include "CH4.itp"
;
;
[ moleculetype ]
;       Name    nrexcl
MCM     3
[ atoms ]
;       nr      type    resnr   residue atom    cgnr    charge          mass
1       SI      1       MCM     SI      1       1.2804993       28.086
2       SI      1       MCM     SI      2       1.2804993       28.086
3       SI      1       MCM     SI      3       1.2804993       28.086
4       SI      1       MCM     SI      4       1.2804993       28.086
5       SI      1       MCM     SI      5       1.2804993       28.086
??
2139    OH      1       MCM     OH      2139    -0.52612471     15.9994
2140    H         1       MCM     H       2140    0.20599988      1.00797
2141    OH      1       MCM     OH      2141    -0.52612471     15.9994
2142    H         1       MCM     H       2142    0.20599988      1.00797
[ bonds ]
;       ai      aj      funct   c0      c1      c2      c3
[ constraints ]
;       ai      aj      funct   c0      c1      c2      c3
[ angles ]
;       ai      aj      ak      funct   c0      c1
[ dihedrals ]
;       ai      aj      ak      al      funct   c0      c1


[ system ]
; Name
CH4 in MCM

[ molecules ]
; Compound        #mols
MCM                1
CH4                10





-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.





More information about the gromacs.org_gmx-users mailing list