The activities of the Department are focused into two main areas – teaching and scientific research. In the teaching area, the Department provides the teaching of the subject Fluid Mechanics for all branches of Bachelor Studies at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty and for some branches at other Faculties. (The Faculties of Metallurgy and Material Engineering, Mining-Geology and Safety Engineering).
At the Faculty, the Mechanical Engineering Department guarantees and provides a bachelor study branch under the name Hydraulic and Pneumatic Machines and Equipment and branch Hydraulics and Pneumatics on the master studies. Graduates of the three-year bachelor branch obtain theoretical and basic practical knowledge, especially in the areas of design, operation, maintenance, diagnostics and upkeep of hydraulic and pneumatic equipment. Graduates of the bachelor branch, if continuing in the two-year follow-up masters study of Hydraulics and Pneumatics branch gain deep theoretical knowledge, which enables them to work as designers, calculation specialists, research and development staff, and sales reps for local and foreign companies. The Department also provides a doctoral study. There are presently doctoral students for the areas of modelling flow accepted in terms of the branch Applied Mechanics and for the area of Hydraulics and Pneumatics in terms of the branch the Control of Machines and Processes. No other school in the Czech Republic guarantees such complete education in this given branch.
Lessons are supplemented by the practical use of IT, experimental exercises in the Department´s laboratories and by the simulation of hydraulic and pneumatic mechanisms on simulation equipment. The Department uses these laboratories: The Laboratory of Branch Measurements, The Laboratory of Pneumatics, The Laboratory of Hydraulic Drives, a computer classroom and two classrooms for 24 students. In both classrooms there are installed a data-projectors and those are where the defense of a diploma thesis takes place. In addition to teaching laboratories the Department has available the Laboratory for Science and Research with an area of 75 m2, but laboratory measurements are also carried out here from the subjects Pumping Equipment, Lubrication Equipment and the Dynamics of Fluid Mechanisms.
The Department laboratories have been significantly innovated in the last years. Using the investment funds of the school there was installed a rotational viscometer – rheometer from the American company Brookfield, and using the joint investment funds of the Faculty, Department and grants there was installed an anemometer, including software and AD convertor, from the Danish company Dantec Dynamics. From grant funds there was installed a M5050 measuring system from the German company Hydrotechnik. From investment subsidies a hydro-electric linear servo-drive was installed. In the framework of completing ESF grant „The Operational Programme The Development of Human Resources“ under the name „Teaching the Subject Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Mechanics, No. CZ.04.1.03/3.2.15.2/0349, eleven pieces of equipment were innovated or created for the laboratory measurement tasks of fluid mechanics, which are used for other subjects taught by the Department and for the Faculty of Safety Engineering. The student´s IT classroom is equipped with six computers connected to an internal computer network and the doctoral lab has four work stations for the numerical modelling of fluid flow. The Department has modern software equipment available, for example the systems Fluent, SiteFlow2005, Pneusim, Automation Studio, Videoscan, Flowmaster, Matlab-Simulink with the toolbox Control System, SimMechanics, SimHydraulics, Virtual Reality and Signal Processing, and also AUTOCAD Mechanical Desktop and other equipment.
Scientific research activity of the Department is focused especially on the mathematical modelling of flow, the experimental and mathematical research of flow instability, the mathematical modelling and computer simulation of the dynamics of hydraulic and pneumatic elements and systems, the dynamic properties of long hydraulic pipelines with mineral oil, on flow suspension and non-Newtonian liquids (especially plastic lubricants), on pneumatic mechanisms and on turbulence measurements. In co-operation with the Faculty of Safety Engineering it deals with the issue of environmental risks and the possibilities of mathematical modelling. The Department considerably shares in working on the COST international grant, and in working on a number of other state-wide grants. The Doctoral Department shares in grant activities and has also successfully founded defense doctoral dissertations and associate professorship work from it.
The Department also focuses on co-operation with the work of other universities in the Czech Republic and abroad in similar areas, such as scientific research.