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Design and Prototype Development of a Customizable Training System for Teaching Fluid Power Technologies

Hydraulics technology has been used to provide functional solutions to several demands of modern society (e.g. powered steering, rocket and airplane controls, machine tools). Additionally, it is almost impossible to find any industrial product that, during its manufacturing phase, has not been subject to an intervention of a hydraulic mechanism or solution. It is therefore surprising that universities and technical colleges have largely dealt with hydraulics issues employing resources and techniques that do not reflect this industrial scenario. To bridge this gap between academia and industry (by improving professionals' basic preparation in hydraulics topics), this paper presents an alternative approach to hydraulics, based on the design and prototype development of a system that allowed students to reproduce different processes. The proposed solution contained a main device and several tools for mapping different manufacturing processes. These elements formed a complete framework which was flexible, modular and expandable, and could translate the behaviour, performance and parameters of the hydraulic technology applied. A prototype which encapsulated aspects of the proposed design replicated the processes of forging, deep pressing and extruding. A preliminary assessment of the prototype, via a design checklist and controlled experiments, was conducted with students and professionals from industry. The results indicated that the proposed approach had great potential to improve the teaching and learning of hydraulics topics.