File Entry: Environmental Hydraulics of Open Channel Flows

Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids or fluids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid version of pneumatic. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics are used for the generation, control, and transmission of power by the use of pressurized liquids. Hydraulic topics range through some part of science and most of engineering modules, and cover concepts such as pipe flow, dam design, fluids and fluid control circuitry, pumps, turbines, hydro power, computational fluid dynamics, flow measurement, river channel behavior and erosion.
Free surface hydraulics is the branch of hydraulics dealing with free surface flow, such as occurring in rivers, canals, lakes, estuaries and seas. Its sub-field open channel flow studies the flow in open channels.