The quadrupole splitting of deuterated lipid chains provides a beautiful non-invasive probe of lipid structure, and can be measured using NMR techniques. Reproduction of the order parameter profile along the lipid chains is an important objective in simulation models of lipid membranes. There are two gaps to be bridged, however, between the experiment and the atomistic model calculations. (1) time-scale: the order parameters should be calculated by first averaging the orientation of each C-D vector with respect to the magnetic field over the time of interaction of the field with the magnetic quadrupole (of the order of a microsecond). Atomistic models typically average over tens of nanoseconds. (2) length scale: experimental samples are often multilamellar stacks of millimeter dimension. Atomistic models typically model a single bilayer of even less than 10 nanometer, suppressing longer wavelength undulations.

Coarse-graining helps in bridging both gaps and results will be presented of long-time multilamellar lipid membranes. An attempt will be made to develop models to correct the order parameter profile calculated using atomistic models to reflect those of macroscopic systems.