The three-body interactions were computed at 4,200 combinations of 𝑑 4! , 𝑑 4% , and 𝑑 !% values, yielding a 3D energy landscape. Figure shows representative 1D energy profiles through this landscape computed for Γ = = 0.3 chains/𝜎 ! NPs. The profiles show that the threebody interactions are highly repulsive when a NP approaches a dimer of contacting NPs along the dimer's perpendicular axis (Fig. ) and negligible when the NP approaches the dimer along its longitudinal axis (Fig. ). They also show that the repulsion diminishes as the interparticle distance between the dimer NPs increases (Fig. and). A 5 th -order PIP with 15 symmetrized terms involving 17 fitting parameters (15 linear parameters 𝐶 9:; and 2 nonlinear parameters) was used to fit the three-body interactions. The inner and outer radii of the switching function were set