Colloquium
Sedimenting ellipsoids
Speaker: Rama Govindarajan (ICTS, TIFR, Bengaluru)
Date and time
Venue
Auditorium
Abstract
Imagine an array of tiny solid spheres dropped simultaneously in a very viscous fluid. This array then undergoes the famous Crowley instability, which leads to growing waves and clumping. We show, experimentally and theoretically, a different story with sedimenting ellipsoids. Their orientation can have a stabilising influence, leading, instead of waves, to growing algebraic "non-wave" perturbations. We discuss how clumping occurs here, and how it is different from the "normal" clumping which occurs when the system is unstable.
Rama Govindarajan did her PhD in the Indian Institute of Science, and postdoc in CalTech. She is now on the faculty of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru, India. Her research interests are in flow instability, particulate flows and flows with phase change, especially the fluid dynamics of clouds.
She is a Fellow of the three Indian Academies and the American Physical Society (APS). She is or has been on the Editorial Board of Physics of Fluids, Physical Review Fluids, Physical Review Letters and JFM Perspectives.
She is a Fellow of the three Indian Academies and the American Physical Society (APS). She is or has been on the Editorial Board of Physics of Fluids, Physical Review Fluids, Physical Review Letters and JFM Perspectives.