[gmx-users] Dubious results with NPT

sujithkakkat . sujithks58 at gmail.com
Mon Feb 24 05:37:32 CET 2014


Hello,

  Thank you both for  the comments. I am using gromos96 forcefield . I read
a little bit  and as you said the nonbonded cutoff has to be higher.
The tau_p=5ps was chosen , since the manual mentions that the value has to
be raised by 4-5 times on going from berendsen to parrinello-rahman
barostat, though I did not completely follow the reasons behind it. I will
try with lower values.

   I had run an earlier simulation with the same parameters for a pure
water system for 5ns and reference pressure 5bar, and things worked fine
there with the average pressure at 5.15bar. I guess the sigma  for the case
of water was low and therefore the small cut-off of 0.8nm did not matter.
However the case of cyclohexane alone remains to be tried.

I guess Dr Vitaly was saying about using a switch/shift function.
I will try the simulation with the new settings and see.

Regards,

Sujith.


On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 10:37 PM, Dr. Vitaly Chaban <vvchaban at gmail.com>wrote:

> There is such thing in simulations as energy conservation...
>
> If you use "vdwtype= cut-off" and this cut-off happens at 0.8nm, while
> sigma for the largest atom is ~0.34nm, the problems are inevitable.
>
> Your cut-off should not be smaller than 0.90nm, and you need to apply
> a more polite method to bring pairwise energy term down to zero at
> this cut-off.
>
>
> Dr. Vitaly V. Chaban
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 3:07 PM, Justin Lemkul <jalemkul at vt.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 2/23/14, 8:30 AM, sujith wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear GROMACS users,
> >>
> >>       I am new to GROMACS, and recently started using the version 4.6.5.
> >>
> >> I have seen a lot of NPT related issues raised earlier in this forum,
> but
> >> in
> >> my case the error looks much more severe.
> >>
> >> I am following Justin Lemkul's tutorial
> >>
> >> (
> http://www.bevanlab.biochem.vt.edu/Pages/Personal/justin/gmx-tutorials/biphasic/01_genconf.html
> )
> >> on Biphasic system, containing cyclohexane and water.Everything went
> well
> >> till the  NPT simulation to bring system to reference pressure of 1 bar.
> >>
> >> Here are the details of the system , .mdp file , what I did and  where I
> >> find the problem.
> >>
> >>     SYSTEM :  512 cyclohexane + 2720 water molecules.
> >>
> >>     CURRENT STATUS:
> >>
> >>               (1)    Energy minimization  : energy converged.
> >>
> >>               (2)    NVT (tcoupl=berendsen , tau_t=0.1ps / ref_t=298K)
> >> completed and target pressure of 298 K attained.
> >>
> >>               (3)    NPT (tcoupl=nose-hoover, tau_t=0.5ps /
> >> pcoupl=berendsen,
> >> tau_p=1ps / ref_p = 1bar , total time=15 ns) completed with the
>  following
> >> result:
> >>
> >>               Energy                      Average   Err.Est.       RMSD
> >> Tot-Drift
> >>
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>               Pressure                    1.08924       0.67     114.66
> >> -1.74033  (bar)
> >>
> >>          Since berendsen barostat doesn't generate the true ensemble, an
> >> equilibration with  pcoupl=parrinello-rahman is  performed in the next
> >> step.
> >>
> >>               (4)  NPT (pcoupl=parrinello-rahman, tau_p=5ps, total
> >> time=5ns)
> >> ----> PROBLEM FACED:  The average pressure too high as shown below
> which I
> >> feel is not going to improve.
> >>
> >> Energy                      Average   Err.Est.       RMSD  Tot-Drift
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Pressure                    23.6651       0.53    144.464   -1.00634
> >> (bar)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>    I am aware of the fact that pressure is subject to large fluctuations
> >> in
> >> small sized systems and that this may affect the average value of the
> >> pressure. But , here the average pressure looks too large to be ignored.
> >> The
> >> pressure-vs-time graph doesn't show any upward trend, and the pressure
> >> looks
> >> like fluctuating about a central value.
> >>
> >>
> >>                        Here is the .mdp file. Only changes made from the
> >> previous .mdp  for berendsen pressure coupling , are with  pcoupl and
> >> tau_p.
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.3 Run Control
> >> integrator               = md
> >> tinit                       = 0
> >> dt                         = 0.002
> >> nsteps                  = 2500000
> >> comm_mode         = Linear
> >> nstcomm              = 1
> >> comm_grps           = CHX SOL
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.8 Output Control
> >> nstxout                 = 2500
> >> nstvout                 = 2500
> >> nstfout                  = 2500
> >> nstlog                   = 2500
> >> nstenergy              = 100
> >> nstxtcout               = 1000
> >> xtc_precision          = 1000
> >> xtc_grps                = System
> >> energygrps             = System
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.9 Neighbor Searching
> >> nstlist                   = 1
> >> ns_type                = grid
> >> pbc                      = xyz
> >> rlist                      = 0.8
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.10 Electrostatics
> >> coulombtype             = PME
> >> rcoulomb                  = 0.8
> >> ; 7.3.11 VdW
> >> vdwtype                 = cut-off
> >> rvdw                      = 0.8
> >
> >
> > What force field are you using?  If it's Gromos96 like my tutorial, the
> > value of rvdw is much too short and can lead to artifacts.  Using 0.8 for
> > rlist/rcoulomb is fine, though 0.9 is more common.  rvdw should be 1.4.
> >
> >> DispCorr                = EnerPres
> >> ; 7.3.13 Ewald
> >> fourierspacing          = 0.12
> >> pme_order               = 4
> >> ewald_rtol               = 1e-5
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.14 Temperature Coupling
> >> tcoupl                   = nose-hoover
> >> tc_grps                 = CHX        SOL
> >> tau_t                    = 0.5        0.5
> >> ref_t                    = 298        298
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.15 Pressure Coupling
> >> pcoupl                    = parrinello-rahman
> >> pcoupltype              = isotropic
> >> tau_p                      = 5.0
> >> compressibility        = 4.5e-5
> >> ref_p                       = 1.0
> >>
> >
> > The value of tau_p seems a bit long to me; does changing it to 1.0
> improve
> > the results?
> >
> >> ; 7.3.17 Velocity Generation
> >> gen_vel                  = no
> >>
> >> ; 7.3.18 Bonds
> >> constraints                 = all-bonds
> >> constraint_algorithm    = LINCS
> >> continuation               = yes
> >> lincs_order                 = 4
> >> lincs_iter                    = 1
> >> lincs_warnangle          = 30
> >> "npt.mdp" 63L, 4080C
> >>
> >>      I guess there is something seriously wrong in the choice of
> >> methods/parameters in the .mdp file, which I cant figure out. Kindly go
> >> through and let me know your comments.
> >> I would be happy to give any further details. Any help would be
> >> appreciated.
> >
> >
> > An even better test is to simplify the system.  Run pure water or pure
> > cyclohexane with the existing settings, then try the modifications above.
> > That should help root out whether you're having a problem with the .mdp
> > settings, force field, or maybe even the combination of both.
> >
> > -Justin
> >
> > --
> > ==================================================
> >
> > Justin A. Lemkul, Ph.D.
> > Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow
> >
> > Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
> > School of Pharmacy
> > Health Sciences Facility II, Room 601
> > University of Maryland, Baltimore
> > 20 Penn St.
> > Baltimore, MD 21201
> >
> > jalemkul at outerbanks.umaryland.edu | (410) 706-7441
> > http://mackerell.umaryland.edu/~jalemkul
> >
> > ==================================================
> > --
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