Particulate flows like dust storms and snow avalanches are impossible to solve exactly for, and so we need to develop analytical and numerical techniques to obtain an understanding of them. I will discuss why this is a hard problem and discuss a few simplified problems that we are able to solve. I will try to include an example of the clumping of dust particles in planetesimal formation.
Rama Govindarajan is a Senior Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru, India. Her PhD was in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and Postdoc was in CalTech. Before joining TIFR she worked in the National Aerospace Laboratories and in the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. She is a fluid dynamicist working primarily on particulate and droplet flows, flows with phase change and on instabilities. Prof. Govindarajan is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for the year 2007.