Student Projects
Student projects at IFD are usually closely related to current research projects and are supervised by our doctoral students, lecturers and professors. Some projects are conducted in collaboration with academic and industrial partners.
The Process
At IFD we try to assign the projects according to the students' preferences. To make sure that you get the project of your choice, it is best to contact us as soon as possible and preferably a few weeks before the semester starts. For a list of available projects, see the list below.
On the first Friday of each semester, IFD organizes an information event for students who are starting a project at IFD. The event is a great opportunity to meet other students, IFD faculty members, and supervisors. Moreover, detailed information about how student projects are conducted at IFD is given (Download student project guidelines (PDF, 3.3 MB)). Specifics about the event are provided by student supervisors.
Presentations of Bachelor, semester and CSE seminar thesis projects usually take place during the last week of the semester in the room ML H 51 ("Treibhaus"). Master thesis presentation dates are setup individually depending on the corresponding starting dates. Selected posters of projects are showcased on the H-floor of the ML building (poster templates for Download LaTeX (ZIP, 551 KB) and Download MS Word (DOCX, 353 KB) are available).
Blood flow and microparticle transport in microfluidic channels
Blood is a dense suspension of cells with dimensions comparable to microvessel diameters. Highly deformable red blood cells (RBCs) make up 40–45% of blood volume (hematocrit) in humans. Therefore, blood flowing in microvessels cannot be considered as a homogeneous fluid, but rather a concentrated suspension of highly deformable particles navigating through complex networks of small blood vessels. Blood flow in small vessels such as arterioles is known to display a segregation phenomenon called margination, where highly deformable red blood cells are preferentially found near the axial center of the vessel, segregating leukocytes and platelets in the near-wall region. Such phenomenon is particularly important for targeted drug delivery, as the motion of drug-carriers is strongly affected by their interactions with RBCs, given the significant volume fraction of RBCs (hematocrit) in whole blood. A key unresolved question is: how are particles distributed among vascular networks in the presence of highly concentrated RBCs?
Keywords
Biomedical fluid dynamics, Blood flow, Particle-laden flow
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Semester Project , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2025-01-20 , Earliest start: 2025-02-24 , Latest end: 2025-09-01
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Li Yinghui
Topics Engineering and Technology
AI-Assisted Control of Turbulent Flow
We invite motivated students to work on an innovative project that combines experimental fluid dynamics and artificial intelligence to study and control quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) turbulence. The project builds upon our newly constructed electromagnetically controlled experimental system, designed to explore complex and controllable flow patterns.
Keywords
experimental fluid dynamics, particle-laden turbulence, machine learning, flow control, PIV, PTV
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Semester Project , Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-12-18 , Earliest start: 2025-01-13 , Latest end: 2025-05-31
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Shin Seunghwan
Topics Engineering and Technology
Ultrasound-driven dynamics of confined microbubbles in capillary-scale hydrogel microchannel networks
Coated microbubbles are commercially available and clinically approved ultrasound contrast agents used in ultrasound imaging to enhance imaging contrast when injected systemically, thereby improving diagnostic capabilities. Recently, microbubbles have been proposed as therapeutic agents for targeted drug delivery. In order to reliably characterise these agents, suitable in vitro phantoms that mimic the mechanical properties of vascular networks are required to study the dynamics of microbubbles in a confined environment.
Keywords
Microbubble, bubble dynamics, microchannels, hydrogels
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Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-12-16 , Earliest start: 2025-03-02 , Latest end: 2025-09-01
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Guerriero Giulia
Topics Engineering and Technology
Design and development of a diffusion cell for sonophoresis treatment
Sonophoresis is the physical method of using low frequency ultrasound to increase skin permeability for transdermal drug delivery. Although acoustic cavitation in the coupling medium placed on the skin for ultrasound transmission has been identified as the primary mechanical effect responsible for the increase in skin permeability after low frequency ultrasound treatment, the complex interplay between physical and biological processes is still unclear. Franz diffusion cells are a commercially available platform for performing in vitro skin permeation and drug release studies. They consist of two compartments, the donor and the receptor. The receptor compartment contains the dissolution medium, and the donor part contains the drug formulation. The skin model is placed between the receptor and donor compartment and acts as a barrier. The application of low frequency ultrasound in the donor compartment of the Franz diffusion cell is limited by the size of the donor compartment itself, but more importantly its geometry does not allow lateral optical access to the skin surface to study cavitation bubble dynamics using high speed imaging, limiting the study of cavitation bubble-tissue interactions.
Keywords
Sonophoresis, diffusion cell, drug delivery, cavitation
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Bachelor Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-12-16 , Earliest start: 2025-03-02 , Latest end: 2025-06-30
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Guerriero Giulia
Topics Engineering and Technology
Theoretical and numerical modeling of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) transducers
High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) transducers are widely used in ultrasound-based therapies such as targeted drug delivery, lithotripsy and histotripsy. Predicting the pressure field generated by their interaction with obstacles is of paramount importance both for research and applications. A numerical approach can be adopted to create a model that can be used as an acoustic source in subsequent calculations.
Keywords
Acoustics, HIFU transducers, numerical simulation, pressure measurements
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Semester Project , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-12-16 , Earliest start: 2025-02-01 , Latest end: 2025-06-30
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Fiorini Samuele
Topics Mathematical Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Physics
Modeling cavitation bubble dynamics inside a droplet influenced by acoustic driving
Cavitation bubble dynamics confined within droplets is a crucial aspect to evaluate their applicability in several biomedical applications. The goal of this project involves adapting an existing boundary integral method (BIM) interface to simulate the dynamics of an acoustically-activated bubble confined in a droplet.
Keywords
Bubble dynamics, Boundary Integral Method, Acoustic activation
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis
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Published since: 2024-12-13 , Earliest start: 2025-02-03 , Latest end: 2025-06-30
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Anunay Anunay
Topics Engineering and Technology
Prediction of the acoustic field generated by a single oscillating bubble
Ultrasonically driven microbubbles can produce cyclic jets driven by interfacial instabilities that can result in cellular drug uptake in targeted drug delivery. In this project, the student will develop a model to predict the acoustic signals produced by these jets.
Keywords
Acoustics, bubbles, finite element methods
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2024-12-13 , Earliest start: 2025-02-01 , Latest end: 2025-12-31
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Supponen Outi
Topics Engineering and Technology
Bubbles in turbulence: PIV-PTV measurements of bubble and carrier-fluid velocity
Bubbles are entrained under the ocean surface when waves break at sea. While submerged, they enhance the transfer of gases between the atmosphere and ocean. When they rise back to the surface, they eventually burst, ejecting small aerosol particles into the atmosphere which impact mass, momentum, and energy transfer and serve as condensation nuclei for clouds. Understanding the bubbles' dynamics in the turbulent environment beneath the surface is important to modelling their eventual effects on these processes. This project will consider the dynamics of bubbles in a turbulent flow and will focus on the dynamics of small bubbles (whose rise velocities in quiescence are on the order of, or are smaller than, the typical turbulent velocities). Particularly, questions to address include: - How does the turbulence impact the bubbles’ average rising velocity? - How do bubbles preferentially sample the turbulent flow? - Which mechanisms of rise speed modification (non-linear drag, fast-tracking, loitering, etc.) are significant at different conditions?
Keywords
bubbles, turbulence, multiphase flows, fluid dynamics, particle image velocimetry, particle tracking
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Master Thesis
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Published since: 2024-12-11 , Earliest start: 2025-01-06 , Latest end: 2025-08-29
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Ruth Daniel
Topics Engineering and Technology , Physics
Development of an acoustic trapping device for microbubbles and droplets
This project focuses on developing an acoustic trapping device to control micrometric bubbles, droplets and particles in suspension and subsequently on using their precise positioning to investigate bubble dynamics in ultrasound fields.
Keywords
bubbles, droplets, particles, acoustic trapping
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis
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Published since: 2024-12-09 , Earliest start: 2025-02-01 , Latest end: 2025-06-30
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Bauer Tobias
Topics Engineering and Technology
Bi-Dispersed Heavy Particles in Air Turbulence
From precipitation in clouds to microplastic sedimentation in the ocean, particles of various sizes interact with turbulent flows in both natural and industrial environments. In the atmosphere, turbulence is believed to play a crucial role in the collision of different-sized water droplets, a key mechanism for rain initiation in warm clouds. A simpler yet important approach to studying these interactions is to focus on suspensions with two particle sizes but the same density. In this project, we aim to experimentally investigate the dynamics of bi-dispersed particles in air turbulence, a fundamental setup for understanding how different groups of particles behave and interact with turbulence in a controlled laboratory environment. The student will track particles settling in turbulent air using a 3D multi-camera system and reconstruct their trajectories with 3D tracking techniques. The acquired data will be used to better understand how turbulence affects the behaviour of the two-particle populations simultaneously.
Keywords
Turbulence, rain, settling
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2024-11-26 , Earliest start: 2025-02-17 , Latest end: 2025-08-17
Applications limited to ETH Zurich , EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , Eawag , Empa , Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research , University of Zurich
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Gambino Alessandro
Topics Engineering and Technology , Physics
Volumetric Imaging of Natural Snowfall Formations in the Field
The interaction between natural snowfalls and atmospheric wind conditions can lead to complex snow clustering dynamics mediated by turbulence. For example, the formations of columnar structures and kinematic waves such as those present in particle-laden flows. How do such complex systems composed of millions of snowflakes lead to structure in the presence of a large variety of atmospheric turbulence conditions? Which kind of structures form depending on the snow mass loading, the type of frozen hydrometeor, and the atmospheric turbulence intensity levels? Building on a previous project that performed planar imaging, this project will focus on performing volumetric field imaging. Measurements will be performed at a professional field site in Davos where a holography setup will collocate snowflake characterization. To process the imaging data the student will join forces at the DLR in Göttingen and track snowflakes using state-of-the-art ‘Shake-the-Box’ Lagrangian particle tracking methodology.
Keywords
Snowfall, Three-dimensional Tracking, UAVs, Field Experiments
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Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-11-19 , Earliest start: 2025-01-06 , Latest end: 2025-09-12
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Muller Koen
Topics Mathematical Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics
Applying optical flow methods for tracking water surface cur- rents by infrared imaging
This study aims for the development and testing of an optical flow code to track water surface currents based on patterns from infrared images. It combines a laboratory experiment in an exciting setup using state of the art equipment, with the challenging task to develop the code to analyze the data. ### See attached pdf document for full application text ###
Keywords
fluid dynamics, turbulence, image analyses, optical flow, code development, particle tracking velocimetry, infrared imaging
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Semester Project , Internship , Master Thesis , Focus Project (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2024-11-18 , Earliest start: 2025-01-01 , Latest end: 2026-01-01
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Bullee Pim
Topics Information, Computing and Communication Sciences , Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics
Measurements of gas transfer rate, waves, and turbulence flow under various conditions.
The rate at which CO2 is absorbed by oceans and other open waters is highly dependent on the interactions between wind, waves, and the water flow. In this experimental study we will measure all the parameters involved in this complex gas-transfer system. ### See attached pdf document for full application text ###
Keywords
fluid dynamics, turbulence, waves, experiments
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Semester Project , Internship , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2024-11-18 , Earliest start: 2025-01-01 , Latest end: 2026-01-01
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Bullee Pim
Topics Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics