Academic Institutions

The Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems section in the Department of Energy Technology, at Aalborg University in Denmark, carries out research at the highest international level in the field of efficient, intelligent and reliable fluid power components and systems. Research activities include fluid power systems and components, cylinder drive technology, advanced control of servo systems, fault diagnosis, tribology in fluid power and digital fluid power.

The Fluid Power research activity started in Lyon about 30 years ago initiated by the Professor Serge Scavarda. Until 2007, this research group was part of the Laboratoire d'Automatique Industrielle (LAI) of the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées of Lyon (INSA). In 2007, it merged with the CEntre de Génie Electrique LYonnais (CEGELY) and a microbiology group to form a joint laboratory among the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), INSA Lyon, Ecole Centrale de Lyon and University Lyon I. The Ampère Lab is made up of 3 departments collaborating on 8 scientific priorities. The research activities are funded by the government, institutional funding and industry at around 3 500 00 € per annum. The Lab is staffed by a director, 50 academics, 10 full researchers (CNRS), 20 support staff (8 CNRS), 11 post-docs, and about 100 Ph.D. students.

Research activity in Fluid Power: The study of the transmission of power using a fluid (oil, water or gas) constitutes, with electrical power transmission, complementary aspects to one of the major research problems at the present time, that is to say, the design of energy efficient systems. From this point of view, the Ampère Lab is unique in France since it has a recognized expertise in all these technologies for power transmission. This expertise is essential when considering the previous economic and scientific issues. The research in Power Transmission and Control is divided into 3 main scientific areas: multi-domain and multi-scale modeling, methods, and tools for system design, system control. The specificity of our research is to deal with multidisciplinary aspects on the theoretical viewpoint as well as on the experimental side.

The Centre for Power Transmission and Motion Control (PTMC) has a world-leading reputation as a centre of excellence in many aspects of fluid power, actuation, and the dynamics and control of electro-mechanical systems.

The Centre undertakes research, runs CPD courses and offers consultancy services to industry. Every year since 1988 the Centre has hosted or co-hosted an international symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control (FPMC). It is also a founder member of the Fluid Power Centres of Europe (FPCE), a grouping of the foremost research institutions in the field.

The Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (aka CCEFP) is a network of fluid power research laboratories, academic faculty, graduate and undergraduate students at several U.S. universities. The Center’s vision is make fluid power the technology of choice for power generation, transmission, storage, and motion control. CCEFP achieves this vision by focusing on two key objectives: 1) Leading a pre-competitive research strategy focused on industry needs, the CCEFP seeks to transfer its research discoveries to industry. Commercialized research results will bring transformational changes to fluid power’s current and future markets. 2) Educating the next generation of fluid power leaders for industrial or academic careers.

CCEFP coordinates pre-competitive research in three thrust areas:
1) Efficiency ‒ addressing the technical barriers associated with increasing the energy efficiency of fluid power components and systems, as well as efficient control and energy management through fluid power.
2) Compactness ‒ addressing the technical barriers associated with compacting or integrating power supplies, energy storage devices, and other components.
3) Effectiveness ‒ addressing the technical barriers associated with making fluid power safer, easier-to-use, leak-free and quiet.

Laboratory of Techno-Climatic Research and Heavy Duty Machines

Institute of Technische Universität Darmstadt

Chair of Fluid-Mechatronic Systems (Fluidtronics) at the Institute of Mechatronic Engineering, Technische Universität Dresden

Harbin Institute of Technology

Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) was founded in 1920. From its beginning, HIT has received preferential support from the central government. In 1954, the Ministry of Higher Education designated, for the first time, six national key universities. HIT was the only one of the six outside of Beijing. In 1984, HIT again found its way onto the list of 15 national key universities to receive special support. In 1996, HIT was among the first group of universities to be included in Project 211. This project targets 100 institutions of higher education in China to receive preferential support for development in order to become world-class universities in the 21st century. In 1999, HIT was listed as one of the top nine key universities in China. This distinction provided HIT with the opportunity to develop into a highly-competitive first-rate university with the assistance of the Ministry of Education and the Heilongjiang Provincial Government.

Hua Zhong University of Science & Technology

IMAMOTER-C.N.R.

IMAMOTER is a research Institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). Its headquarters are located in Ferrara and it has a Secondary Unit in Turin, inside the premises of the CNR Research Area. IMAMOTER was established on 15 June 2002 from the incorporation of two formerly existing CNR Institutes: the Institute for Earth-Moving Machinery and Off-Road Vehicles (CEMOTER) and the Institute for Agricultural Mechanization (IMA).

IMAMOTER aims at being an excellence centre for advancing, fostering, promoting and disseminating knowledge and technologies for design, production and use of agricultural and construction equipment. Sustainable development, energy efficiency and safety underpin the research actions, bridging Key Enabling Technologies with industrial application in: power transmission, unstructured robotics, man-machine interfaces, advanced materials, physical agents, interaction of machinery with environment.

Education and training are among the targets of the Institute. Researchers run several courses at the Universities of Turin and Ferrara, Post Graduate Masters and several professional advancement courses in the field of fluid power technology, material science, acoustics and safety of agricultural and earthmoving machines.

The Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems (ifas) of RWTH Aachen University is one of the world’s largest and best known scientific institutions conducting research in all aspects of fluid power. This includes hydraulics and pneumatics, as well as all of its fields of application. To be equipped for the future, current research includes areas such as information technology, servo-control engineering, electrical engineering, tribology and chemistry on top of mechanical engineering.

Environmental, safety, and health regulations, as well as increasing industrial consumer requirements, necessitate a continuous development of sustainable and efficient fluid power technology. Greater environmental awareness and new technologies, e.g., mechatronic systems, preventative maintenance, additive manufacturing, biomedical applications, surface coating techniques and modern information technologies, offer new perspectives and fields of application for fluid power systems.

The highly motivated team of aspiring young scientists takes on the challenges presented by this extensive and diversified field of study. The institute’s multiple and profound national and international connections with manufacturers and users of fluid power components and systems, as well as other research facilities, ensure that its activities are leading the way into the future of research, development, and education of fluid power systems.

Our Mission and objective is to lay the methodical and technical foundation for the next generation of mobile systems considering processes, drive-lines, machines and procedures. In this systemic context, approaches in increasing efficiency and intelligent cross-linking are investigated in particular.

The Institute of Machine Design and Hydraulic Drives belongs to the Mechatronics Department of the Johannes Kepler University Linz. Its research focus is on fluid power drives with emphasis on modeling and simulation of fluid power systems and special phenomena, such as wave propagation, fluid structure interaction, or fluid stiction, digital fluid power systems and components and special fluid power systems, frequently in cooperation with industry.

With more than 9,000 employees and an annual budget of about EUR 785 million, KIT is one of the biggest research and education institutions worldwide and has the potential of reaching a top position in selected research areas on an international level. The objective is to turn KIT into an institution of top research, excellent scientific education, and a prominent location of academic life, life-long learning, comprehensive advanced training, unrestricted exchange of know-how, and sustainable innovation culture. The endowed Chair of Mobile Machines "MOBIMA" at KIT is unique in its setup in Germany and is internationally recognized as a professional consultant for questions in the field of mobile machines. The stated goal is the research on future concepts. Students and young scientists are being inspired by mobile equipment and the industry is scientifically accompanied from idea to implementation.

LASHIP - Laboratory of Hydraulic and Pneumatic Systems of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina has a structure focused on attending university activities of education, research and services. The LASHIP’s team is involved with undergraduate education since 1977 and graduate education and research on hydraulic and pneumatic components and systems since 1984. The research funds are from government projects and partnerships with industries. Besides the infrastructure in equipment and facilities, it is established a group made by 4 professors and about 15 people among research engineers and graduate and undergraduate students connected through institutional projects and industry.

Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT University) – Laboratory of Intelligent Machines

Flumes – Division of Fluid and Mechatronic Systems at Linköping University is the leading fluid power research and education division in Sweden. We strive to develop methods to reduce energy losses in the technical system containing hydraulics and to develop smarter and more energy efficient hydraulic systems and components. The common field which connects all areas is the strong simulation technology developed at the division.

Maha Fluid Power Research Center, sponsored by Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, is the largest academic hydraulics lab in the USA. With 15,000 square feet of space, the top minds in fluid power conduct world-class research on hydraulic pumps, motors, and systems -- both computer modeling, and real-world experimentation. The lab currently hosts dozens of ongoing projects, both from academia and industry.

Maha Fluid Power Research Center was formed in 2004 from a $4 million endowment from fluid power pioneer Otto Maha. Dr. Monika Ivantysynova moved from TUHH in Hamburg-Harburg, Germany to become Maha's director, where she served until her passing in 2018.

The Rolf Fluid Power Laboratories located within the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Missouri (MU) provide ample space, power resources, and technician support for conducting a wide range of scientific and engineering investigations related to hydraulic control systems and machine design. This lab is approximately 1,000 square feet with an 18 foot ceiling and employs the services of electrical and mechanical disciplines. A local machine shop and an electrical shop within the College of Engineering are in place to support the construction and maintenance of specialized experimental setups for this facility. Hydraulic power units in the lab are capable of providing 200 hp at 6,000 psi and flow rates as high as 60 gallons per minute. Instrumentation in the lab, allows for accurate measurements of pressure, flow, viscosity, temperature, force, speed, torque, displacement, and other parameters in experimental setups.

The “Fluid Power Research Group – FPRG” is one of groups belonging to the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples “Federico II”. The group works on the optimization and design of new components in the hydraulic field. It has been founded by the Full Professor Adolfo Senatore and includes Students, Ph.D. Students, Post-Docs and foreign collaborators. The headquarters of the FPRG is in Naples, Via Claudio 21 – 80125, Italy. The Group has research collaborations with important national and international Industrial Partners and Universities, like University of Minnesota, Purdue University, Zhejiang University, Duplomatic Oleodinamica SpA, Continental Hydraulic Inc., Ferrari SpA, Casappa, Lombardini Kohler Group SpA, Aprilia Racing, Abete Srl, Protom, CNR – Istituto Motori, FCA, Mathers Hydraulics and others. The team is also involved in national and international projects funded by public institutions (Italy and Europe) and private companies. The FPRG in 2016 has won, with others partners, a European project in Horizon 2020 for the design of an innovative lubrication system for Rolls Royce. From 2016, the Group is officially part of the Global Fluid Power Society (GFPS - www.gfpsweb.org) as one of the Academic Institutions. The research group has a long experience in the fluid power field working both with modeling and experimental techniques. Experimentation is mostly on pumps and valves for the engines’ hydraulic systems. However, thanks to the collaboration with Tecno Fluid Service (one on the team’s partners), the team is able to tests also high displacement pumps. The Group has developed several innovative modeling techniques using mono-dimensional three-dimensional CFD approaches. More than forty scientific papers have been written over the last three years, mostly on international journals.

The Department of Power Plant Automatic Systems belongs to the Institute of Engine and Power Plant Engineering of Samara National Research University (Samara State Aerospace University before 2016) named after academician S.P. Korolev (Samara University). The scientific and education activity of Samara University encompasses aerospace technologies, engine-building, and modern methods of information processing, as well as the fundamental technical and natural sciences and the humanities. It is one of the fastest-developing Russian institutions of higher education. The Department of Power Plant Automatic Systems is carrying on education and research in the fields of fluid power systems, control engineering, mechatronics, and robotics. The education activity of the Department includes training undergraduates and engineers in the field of automatic control for aircraft engines, as well as in fuel supply systems and hydraulic systems of aircraft. Our education process is aimed at developing competences in the analysis and design of mechatronic units and systems for various applications including but not limited to aerospace technology. Aircraft hydraulic systems and engine fuel control have been being our main research objects since 1960th. The research is mainly focusing on the problems of ensuring quality requirements for dynamic processes in the fluid power and fuel systems, reducing noise and vibroacoustic loads in it, developing methods and means for a proper correction of dynamic performances of hydraulic and pneumatic systems. Today all research activity of the Department is carried out in the research Centre for Vibroacoustics of Machines. The Centre comprises several laboratories equipped with up-to-date test rigs and instrumentation.

South China University of Technology (SCUT) is one of the leading universities in China, with its establishment directly affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Education. Located in the city of Guangzhou, a thriving metropolis in South China, it today covers a total area of 294 hectares, consisting of two campuses: the Wushan Campus and the University Town Campus.After over 60 years of development, SCUT has become a multi-disciplinary university, merging science, engineering, business management, arts and social science, medicine and other disciplines into one integration. Since its founding, it has educated over 350,000 graduates at all levels. Large numbers of SCUT alumni have made major contributions to the country and the world, especially in fields of economy, technology, management and education.

The Fluid Power Research Laboratory (FPRL) at the Department of Energy (DENERG) was founded in the middle 1980s and completely rebuilt in the early 2000s within the “High Quality Laboratories” project of the Politecnico di Torino. The staff has specific competencies on modeling, simulation and testing of fluid power components and systems. Main research fields are the development of 0D and 3D models of positive displacement machines, in particular, gerotor, vane and piston pumps. The laboratory is equipped with test rigs for lubricating pumps, industrial pumps and motors up to 100 kW and electro-hydraulic servovalves. The Politecnico di Torino has a long tradition in the teaching of Fluid Power in Italy. Since 1979, about 10,000 students have attended specific Fluid Power courses. In this context, the FPRL plays a fundamental role in the laboratory experiences grounded on dedicated didactic test rigs.

What we are doing: Innovative Hydraulics and Automation (IHA) is doing interdisciplinary research in the field of Fluid power automation, by the bridging of theory and practice with cooperation with industry.

Yokohama National University