Network with six-fold symmetry at non-zero temperature (contd from lecture 38)

In other word, the fluctuation of the spring increases with temperature. It is not however clear how the network would appear at non-zero temperature as the length of the springs and the area of the plaquette would have considerable variations. Molecular dynamic simulation computes many such configurations. Interestingly it predicts that the area of the network decreases in the temperature range  0 to 0.2, implying that the network has a negative coefficient of thermal expansion at this temperature range. At higher temperature increases linearly with temperature  with slope equal to . In contrast to area, the elastic modulii of the network vary weakly with temperature from their temperature value.