Molecular physical mechanics and multiphysics-scale studies

When size goes down to nanoscale or molecular scale, besides the widely known spatial and temporal multiscale problems, new physical properties and coupling effects between mechanical motion and physical, biochemical properties may become dominant, and multiphysics-scale problems arise. Under the interdisciplinary framework that combines continuum mechanics and quantum mechanical theory, here we present several selected problems, including nanointelligent behaviors, the energy dissipation mechanism, the temperature treatment strategy, bond switching, and ion channels, among others, to demonstrate some of the most common concerns in molecular physical mechanics. The examples mainly cover the range of multidisciplines from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, etc., although for more complex phenomena such as in life science the multiphysics scale may not stop at quantum mechanics. The results show that except for the size scale and the time scale, the physical scale is also spanned in these multiscale investigations. The molecular physical mechanics needs to extend to a larger range of multiphysical scale when research goes deeper into the nature of molecular systems, certainly with greater challenges, but more arresting findings.