Enriching Engineering Education in Fluidics

Engineering education in fluidics means to convey the physical principles behind pneumatic or hydraulic building blocks such as valves or cylinders. Up to now fluidic hardware plays an important role in this connection: Education laboratories with semi-professional components are used to build up small circuits and to perform experiments respecting hydraulic and pneumatic laws of nature. Based on research and experiences in the fluidic engineering domain we have realized tools for drawing, simulating, and behavior visualization of electro-fluidic circuits. These tools aim at a core objective within the fluidic education: gathering experience by (riskless) experimenting with fluidic and electric building blocks, thus providing an immediate feedback when trying to answer “what-if”-questions. This paper outlines selected concepts of our tools as well as of our current research in this field.