[gmx-users] Pressure coupling problem

Fabian Casteblanco fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com
Fri Apr 15 21:15:11 CEST 2011


Thank you Justin and Peter for your responses.  I tried extending the time
on the npt equilibration.  It helped but not much.  My final pressure after
the MD run was about 1.15 bar compared to ref_p which was set to 1 bar.
Peter, I will try to analyze the potential error using RMSD and Drift.

Thanks.

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Fabian Casteblanco <
fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm still in my first few months of using Gromacs.  I started by creating
> an *.itp and *.top file for *Ethanol* using CHARMM force field
> parameters.  I made the molecule and it looked fine, put 1000 molecules in a
> box, energy minimized it to a negative potential energy, viewed it on VMD,
> again looks fine.  When I started running the NVT script, I set it equal to
> a ref_T of 298 K.  It equilibrated at the temperature.  Then I tried using
> an NPT script to equilibrate it to a ref_p of 1 bar.  This is where I get
> the problem.  The output shows the density is close to the actual
> experimental value of 0.789 g/cm^3.  But for some reason, my pressure never
> gets an average of 1 bar.  It keeps oscillating, which I understand is
> normal, but the average is always 1.3 or 1.4 bar (it seems the longer I let
> it run, the larger the average pressure; 1.38 for 50,000 steps,dt=0.002 and
> 1.45 for 75,000 steps,dt=0.002).  I don't understand why the ref_p of 1 bar
> is not working when I run this NPT.mdp script file.  My simple goal is to
> have 1000 molecules of ethanol using CHARMM ff parameters at 25degC and 1
> bar and somewhere near the experimental density.
>
> I would really appreciate anybody's help!  I'm new to this but I'm eager to
> keep getting better.
>
> Thanks.
>
> *NVT SCRIPT  (this works fine and takes me to 298 K)*
> File Edit Options Buffers Tools Help
> title           =CHARMM ETHANOL  NVT equilibration
> ;define         =-DPOSRES       ;position restrain the protein
> ;Run parameters
> integrator      =md             ;leap-frog algorithm
> nsteps          =50000          ;2 * 50000 = 100 ps
> dt              =0.002          ;2fs
> ;Output control
> nstxout         =100            ;save coordinates every 0.2 ps
> nstvout         =100            ;save velocities every 0.2 ps
> nstenergy       =100            ;save energies every 0.2 ps
> nstlog          =100            ;update log file every 0.2 ps
> ;Bond parameters
> continuation    =no             ;first dynamics run
> constraint_algorithm=lincs      ;holonomic constraints
> constraints     =all-bonds      ;all bonds (even heavy atom-H
> bonds)constraind
> lincs_iter      =1              ;accuracy of LINCS
> lincs_order     =4              ;also related to accuracy
> ;Neighborhood searching
> ns_type         =grid           ;search neighboring grid cells
> nstlist         =5              ;10 fs
> rlist           =1.0            ;short-range neighborlist cutoff (in nm)
> rcoulomb        =1.0            ;short-range electrostatic cutoff (in nm)
> rvdw            =1.0            ;short-range van der Waals cutoff (in nm)
> ;Electrostatics
> coulombtype     =PME            ;Particle Mesh Ewald for long-range
> electrostat\
> ;ics
> pme_order       =4              ;cubic interpolation
> fourierspacing  =0.16           ;grid spacing for FFT
> ;Temperature coupling is on
> tcoupl          =V-rescale      ;modified Berendsen thermostat
> tc_grps         =SYSTEM   ;two coupling groups - more accurate
> tau_t           =0.1    ;0.1              ;time constant, in ps
> ref_t           =298    ;25               ;reference temperature, one for
> each \
> ;group, in K
> ;Pressure coupling is off
> pcoupl          =no             ;no pressure coupling in NVT
> ;Periodic boundary conditions
> pbc             =xyz            ; 3-D PBC
> ;Dispersion correction
> DispCorr        =EnerPres       ;account for cut-off vdW scheme
> ;Velocity generation
> gen_vel         =yes            ;assign velocities from Maxwell
> distribution
> gen_temp        =25             ;temperature for Maxwell distribution
> gen_seed        =-1             ;generate a random seed
> ;END
>
> *NPT SCRIPT*
> File Edit Options Buffers Tools Help
> title           =Ethanol npt equilibration
> ;define         =-DPOSRES       ;position restrain the protein
> ;Run parameters
> integrator      =md             ;leap-frog algorithm
> nsteps          =50000          ;2 * 50000 = 100 ps
> dt              =0.002          ;2fs
> ;Output control
> nstxout         =100            ;save coordinates every 0.2 ps
> nstvout         =100            ;save velocities every 0.2 ps
> nstenergy       =100            ;save energies every 0.2 ps
> nstlog          =100            ;update log file every 0.2 ps
> ;Bond parameters
> continuation    =yes            ;Restarting after NVT
> constraint_algorithm=lincs      ;holonomic constraints
> constraints     =all-bonds      ;all bonds (even heavy atom-H
> bonds)constraind
> lincs_iter      =1              ;accuracy of LINCS
> lincs_order     =4              ;also related to accuracy
> ;Neighborhood searching
> ns_type         =grid           ;search neighboring grid cells
> nstlist         =5              ;10 fs
> rlist           =1.0            ;short-range neighborlist cutoff (in nm)
> rcoulomb        =1.0            ;short-range electrostatic cutoff (in nm)
> rvdw            =1.0            ;short-range van der Waals cutoff (in nm)
> ;Electrostatics
> coulombtype     =PME            ;Particle Mesh Ewald for long-range
> electrostat\
> ;ics
> pme_order       =4              ;cubic interpolation
> fourierspacing  =0.16           ;grid spacing for FFT
> ;Temperature coupling is on
> tcoupl          =V-rescale      ;modified Berendsen thermostat
> tc-grps         =SYSTEM   ;two coupling groups - more accurate
> tau_t           =0.1;   0.1               ;time constant, in ps
> ref_t           =298;   300               ;reference temperature, one for
> each \
> ;group, in K
> ;Pressure coupling is on
> pcoupl          =Parrinello-Rahman      ;Pressure coupling on in NPT
> pcoupltype      =isotropic              ;uniform scaling of box vectors
> tau_p           =2.0                    ;time constant, in ps
> ref_p           =1.0                    ;reference pressure, in bar
> compressibility =4.5e-5         ;isothermal compressibility of h2O, 1/bar
> ;Periodic boundary conditions
> pbc             =xyz            ; 3-D PBC
> ;Dispersion correction
> DispCorr        =EnerPres       ;account for cut-off vdW scheme
> ;Velocity generation
> gen_vel         =no             ;Velocity generation is off
> ;gen_temp       =25             ;temperature for Maxwell distribution
> ;gen_seed       =-1             ;generate a random seed
> ;END
>
>
> --
> *Best regards,*
> **
> *Fabian F. Casteblanco*
> *Rutgers University -- *
> *Chemical Engineering PhD Student*
> *C: +908 917 0723*
> *E:  **fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com* <fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com>
>
>


-- 
*Best regards,*
**
*Fabian F. Casteblanco*
*Rutgers University -- *
*Chemical Engineering PhD Student*
*C: +908 917 0723*
*E:  **fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com* <fabian.casteblanco at gmail.com>
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