Fluid power has the highest power density of all conventional power-transmission technologies. Learn the benefits and limitations of fluid power, how to analyze fluid power components and circuits, and how to design and simulate fluid power circuits for applications.
Offered By
Fundamentals of Fluid Power
University of MinnesotaAbout this Course
Skills you will gain
- Energy
- Hybrid Vehicle Manufacturing
- Hydraulics
- Mechanical Engineering
Offered by

University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota is among the largest public research universities in the country, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional students a multitude of opportunities for study and research. Located at the heart of one of the nation’s most vibrant, diverse metropolitan communities, students on the campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul benefit from extensive partnerships with world-renowned health centers, international corporations, government agencies, and arts, nonprofit, and public service organizations.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Week 1: Fundamentals of Fluid Power
This week: An overview of the course, introduction to hydraulics and pneumatics, and introduction to fundamental concepts of fluid power through the cylinder.
Week 2: Components and Concepts: Part 1
This week: circuit diagrams, the written language of fluid power, and how fluid flows through conduits. We hope that you find the hydraulic circuits on the mowing machine as interesting as we did.
Week 3: Components and Concepts: Part 2
This will be a busy week diving into valves and pumps. We will discuss how basic valves function, how to use them in hydraulic circuits, and how to calculate pressure drop for a given flow rate, or vice versa. The videos will directly address the discussion on the forum about seeing hydraulic components working in real world circuits. In our discussion of pumps we will look at many different positive displacement pumps, exploring flow ripple and pump efficiency, look at the supporting components that form a hydraulic power supply, and see how we can make a transmission with a hydraulic pump and a motor. We are now into the heart of this course; we hope you enjoy seeing the components come together into useful circuits.
Week 4: Predicting Performance Through Simulation
This week is entirely devoted to you learning how to use Simscape Fluids (formerly SimHydraulics), the fluid power simulation application that we use in the course. The lecture provides an introduction to computer-based, object-oriented simulation, and goes through a demo of using Simscape Fluids. The homework assignment contains the real work because this is where you will learn to use Simscape Fluids. The homework ends with an open-ended problem that encourages you to branch out on your own and create and run simulations based on examples listed in the course Simscape Fluids resource page or on any other fluid power system that interests you. We will be monitoring the discussion boards to help you with any technical problems with Simscape Fluids.
Reviews
- 5 stars82.13%
- 4 stars16.26%
- 3 stars0.97%
- 2 stars0.35%
- 1 star0.26%
TOP REVIEWS FROM FUNDAMENTALS OF FLUID POWER
Excellent course, I am a practicing engineer dealing with fluid power and this course helped greatly. Both Professors did an excellent job presenting the course, thank you.
This course gets into the real world applications of Fluid power. Equations, examples, and break downs of problems help gain understanding and knowledge.
Good course with basic review of Fluid mechanics in pipe flow, hydraulics component and application as well as basics in Simscape. More intensive version of this course would be great
Really excellent course for someone who wants to start learning the basics of fluid to advance level of hydraulic system where you can get a practical overview of the product been used in real life.
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