The Curious project focuses on studying the dynamics of cavitation bubbles in highly anisotropic environments, such as when the bubbles are placed in close proximity to boundaries. Recent research indicates that the dynamics of bubbles in such environments deviates significantly from the current understanding, leading to a discovery of new exotic phenomena with a high promise and important implications for the use of cavitation in many existing and novel applications.

The phenomena of cavitation and bubble dynamics have been extensively studied in engineering fields due to the negative consequences of cavitation, such as material erosion. In addition, cavitation has been extensively researched and used in various fields such as medicine, chemistry, environmental protection, and engineering. Despite the considerable progress, there is still a large gap between the understanding of the mechanisms contributing to the effects of cavitation and its application. Additionally, there exists a lack of understanding of how bubbles behave in extreme conditions. This is supported by the recent discoveries of new phenomena that occur when bubbles grow and collapse in highly anisotropic environments. Amongst others, this includes the formation of very fast jets that can reach supersonic speeds, fast and thin needle jets, bullet jets, and fast planar jets.

The Curious project aims to further investigate and venture beyond these recently discovered phenomena. The overall objective of the Curious project is to significantly push the current state-of-the-art by achieving a deeper understanding of the fundamental physics of fast jet formation and exploring the conditions, under which imploding cavitation bubbles form fast, possibly supersonic jets. The research will further focus on how these conditions affect the characteristics of the resulting jets, how the developed jet characteristics affect the extreme conditions during bubble implosion, and how nearby structures respond to these conditions.

The postdoctoral project is funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).

The project team consists of postdoctoral researcher Dr. Jure Zevnik from the Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana.

There are four main objectives of the Curious project, each with a designated work package: (O1) improvements of the current modeling methodology of bubble dynamics and extensive model verification and validation; (O2) experimental station setup for generation and observation of single laser-induced cavitation bubbles and fine-tuning of the experimental methodology; and investigation of bubble dynamics and fast jet formation in highly anisotropic environments, (O3) near solid boundaries and (O4) near highly deformable materials and soft matter.

ZEVNIK, J., PATFOORT, J., ROSSELLÓ, J. M., OHL, C.-D., DULAR, M. Dynamics of a cavitation bubble confined in a thin liquid layer at null Kelvin impulse. Physics of fluids. Jun. 2024, vol. 36, iss. 6, [art.] 063340, str. 1-20. DOI: 10.1063/5.0209287. [COBISS.SI-ID 200352771]

ZEVNIK, J., PANDUR, Ž., STOPAR, D., DULAR, M. Cavitation bubble interaction with compliant structures on a microscale. V: Eurotherm 2024 : book of abstracts : 9th European Thermal Sciences Conference : 10-13 June 2024, Bled, Slovenia. Ljubljana: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, 2024. [COBISS.SI-ID 200886531]

AGREŽ, V., ZEVNIK, J., LOKAR, Ž., DULAR, M., PETKOVŠEK, R. Laser driven cavitation induced micro pumping. V: 12th International Cavitation Symposium – CAV2024, 2-5 June 2024, Chania, Greece. London: CAV, 2024. [COBISS.SI-ID 214193411]

AGREŽ, Vid, ZEVNIK, Jure, LOKAR, Žiga, DULAR, Matevž, PETKOVŠEK, Rok. Flow dynamics in cavitation induced micro pumping. Experimental thermal and fluid science. 2025, vol. 169, [article no.] 111540, 13 str., ilustr. ISSN 1879-2286. DOI: 10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2025.111540. [COBISS.SI-ID 238977027]

ZEVNIK, Jure, ROSSELLÓ, Juan Manuel, DULAR, Matevž. Jets of cavitation bubbles in confined environments : presentation at the 33rd ERCOFTAC Alpe Danube Adria Pilot-Center Meeting, May 23rd, 2025, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ljubljana. [COBISS.SI-ID 245405187]

ZEVNIK, J., ROSSELLÓ, J. M., DULAR, M. Mikrocurki kavitacijskih mehurčkov omejenih med dvema prostima površinama. V: Kuhljevi dnevi 2024 : Ptuj, 19. – 20. september 2024 : zbornik del. Ljubljana: Slovensko društvo za mehaniko, 2024. [COBISS.SI-ID 208464387]

ZEVNIK, Jure, HOČEVAR, Marko, KOLBL REPINC, Sabina, RAK, Gašper. Evaluation of high-speed laser triangulation and LIDAR for turbulent water surface ranging. Experimental thermal and fluid science. [Print ed.]. maj 2025, vol. 164, [article no.] 111432, str. 1-14, ilustr. ISSN 0894-1777. DOI: 10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2025.111432. [COBISS.SI-ID 226939651]

ZEVNIK, J., PANDUR, Ž., STOPAR, D., DULAR, M. Cavitation bubble interaction with biological structures on a microscale : invited lecture at the Multiscale Investigation of Bubble-Cell Interaction Mechanisms for Enhanced Drug Delivery, October 2024, Paris, France. [COBISS.SI-ID 230871299]

ZEVNIK, Jure. Bubble cavitation and its interaction with compliant structures on a microscale : presentation at the CECAM workshop ‘Multiscale Investigation of Bubble-Cell Interaction Mechanism for Enhanced Drug Delivery’, Paris, 28 – 31 October 2024. [COBISS.SI-ID 252633347]