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).
Two-bubble effects on container-fluid-bubble dynamics under vertical vibration
Vertical vibration of fluid-filled containers provides a promising approach for the acoustic manipulation and removal of bubbles from fluids. Recent work has shown that a gas bubble can strongly couple with the container–fluid system, significantly altering the dynamical response of the entire system, including its resonance behaviour. However, while the current theoretical formulation considers a container–fluid system coupled with a single bubble, practical systems typically contain multiple bubbles, whose combined effects on the coupled dynamics remain unclear. This project aims to extend the existing theoretical formulation from a single-bubble system to a two-bubble system. The extended model will be used to predict the pressure distribution and radial oscillations of two bubbles of the same or different sizes and to investigate how their sizes and positions affect the resonance behaviour of the coupled system. Ultimately, the project seeks to identify conditions that enhance bubble oscillations and provide insights into efficient acoustic bubble removal.
Keywords
dynamical system, bubble dynamics, fluid mechanics, acoustics
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Semester Project
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Published since: 2026-08-19 , Earliest start: 2026-09-07 , Latest end: 2026-12-18
Organization Group Supponen
Hosts Kusakabe Satoshi
Topics Engineering and Technology
Large-scale Tracking of Natural Snowfall: Snow Clustering in Three Dimensions
The interaction between natural snowfall and atmospheric wind conditions can lead to complex snow clustering dynamics mediated by turbulence. For example, the formation of columnar structures such as those present in particle-laden flows and gusting waves in the case of extreme weather conditions. How do such complex systems composed of millions of snowflakes lead to structure in the presence of a large variety of (chaotic) atmospheric turbulence conditions? What is the role of polydispersity at the start of a snowfall event? What kind of structures form depending on the snow mass loading, the types of frozen hydrometeors present, and the atmospheric turbulence intensity levels? This project considers large-scale snow measurement over a 10x10x10+m3 volume using a novel, innovative 16-camera tracking system. The project will focus on performing clustering analysis of existing field data, organizing new field expeditions under professional support, and the possibility of joining the German Aerospace Center in Göttingen to collaborate with world-leading particle tracking experts.
Keywords
Natural Snowfall, Three-dimensional Tracking, Clustering Dynamics, Field Experiments, UAV Calibration
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Semester Project , Internship , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2026-08-12 , Earliest start: 2026-09-01 , Latest end: 2027-05-31
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Muller Koen
Topics Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics
Profiling the Orientation Dynamics of Snowflakes in Freefall using UAVs
Understanding the complex interplay between the morphology of frozen precipitation and its fall behavior through the atmosphere is crucial in understanding the dynamics of natural snowfalls. This project aims to combine two airborne snow imaging platforms developed at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics. The first platform involves a small, flexibly deployable, commercial drone with a searchlight that can acquire large amounts of snowflake images for statistical characterization. The second platform encompasses a much larger research-type drone that carries an advanced long-range microscopy platform to capture high-resolution snowflake snapshots paired with meteorological data in hovering flight. Using automated flight paths, the two systems will be used in parallel for atmospheric profiling in the Swiss Alps up to 100 meters above ground level during the snowflakes’ most turbulent end-of-life time at descent through the atmospheric surface layer. This will provide invaluable insight into the variability of single snowflake dynamics through the atmosphere, with numerous applications in weather forecasting and climate projection models.
Keywords
Natural Snowfall, Snow Characterization, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles, Atmospheric Profiling
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Internship , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis , ETH Zurich (ETHZ)
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Published since: 2026-08-12 , Earliest start: 2026-09-01 , Latest end: 2027-05-31
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Muller Koen
Topics Engineering and Technology , Earth Sciences , Physics
Effect of insoluble surfactants on free surface dynamics
This project investigates how insoluble surfactants influence free surface dynamics, which is a critical process for mass and energy transfer at the ocean-atmosphere interface. Unlike soluble surfactants, insoluble ones lack bulk-surface exchange. The study aims to understand how these surface-active materials introduce viscoelastic properties that alter boundary conditions and heavily dampen surface waves via the Marangoni effect.
Keywords
free surface phenomena, interfacial rheology, insoluble surfactants, optical metrology
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Semester Project , Internship , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2026-08-06 , Earliest start: 2026-09-01 , Latest end: 2027-01-01
Applications limited to University of Zurich , EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , ETH Zurich
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Ahmed Ilian
Topics Engineering and Technology , Physics
Turbulent Entrainment in Gravity Currents
In many geophysical situations, the release of a denser fluid on a sloping boundary results in the formation of gravity currents, such as powder snow avalanches, turbidity currents, katabatic winds. Of particular interest are oceanic overflows that can propagate for long distances on continental shelves, playing a key role in the Global Meridional Overturning Circulation, and our weather systems. Turbulent entrainment—the engulfment of ambient fluid inside the turbulent body is at the heart of irreversible mixing in these currents, which dictates how fast and far these flows can propagate. At present, general circulation models (GCM) that predict this often rely on entrainment parametrizations born out of limited laboratory studies at low Reynolds number (Re). Although powerful, this parametrization empirically relates entrainment to only Froude number (Fr) and is found to underpredict the actual entrainment in field studies at higher Reynolds number. Hence, in this proposed project, a student will perform gravity current experiments in the tilting lock-exchange tank at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics (IFD), ETHZ. The student will systematically vary both Fr and Re to check the validity of existing entrainment parametrization. They will then isolate the effects of Fr and Re to refine the existing entrainment parametrization. This will be done using high-speed imaging to quantify density fields. A select few cases will also be probed with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and/or X-ray densitometry, depending on the timeline and interest of the student. This study will contribute to a better understanding of turbulent entrainment, which is a key process in many geophysical flows such as oceanic circulation, powder-snow avalanches and turbidity currents.
Keywords
fluid dynamics, turbulence, gravity currents, oceanic currents, turbulence, particle image velocimetry, X-ray imaging
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Semester Project , Internship , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2026-07-23 , Earliest start: 2026-08-15 , Latest end: 2027-01-05
Applications limited to ETH Zurich , EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , University of Zurich , Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Organization Group Coletti
Hosts Gawandalkar Udhav , Coletti Filippo
Topics Engineering and Technology , Physics
Large-eddy simulation of a convective cloud
Convective clouds play a central role in Earth's energy budget, yet they remain a leading source of uncertainty in climate and weather models. A key challenge in simulating these clouds is representing microphysics — the processes governing droplet growth and their conversion into rainfall — at scales far below what large-eddy simulations (LES) can resolve. Turbulence plays a critical role in this process, strongly influencing droplet growth through enhanced collision rates and preferential concentration. In this project, we use LES to model a convective cloud, comparing atmospherical conditions and Eulerian and Lagrangian (super-droplet) microphysics schemes to better understand how small-scale turbulent dynamics shape droplet growth and precipitation onset.
Keywords
Atmospheric clouds, Large-eddy simulation, Cloud microphysics
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis , Master Thesis
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Published since: 2026-07-08
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Group Jenny
Hosts Codispoti Lukas
Topics Earth Sciences , Physics
High-Order Axisymmetric Boundary Integral Method
The boundary integral method (BIM) is a powerful yet light-weight simulation method for potential flows. BIM solvers apply, however, filtering schemes to stabilize time-evolving simulations. In this work, such schemes shall be avoided by using high-order numerical BIM schemes that do not trigger/amplify errors.
Keywords
CFD, numerics, BIM
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Semester Project , Bachelor Thesis
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Published since: 2026-07-06
Applications limited to ETH Zurich
Organization Institute of Fluid Dynamics
Hosts Meyer-Massetti Daniel Werner
Topics Engineering and Technology , Physics