Abstract:The principle and development of hydraulic system’s thermal characteristics modeling methods were discussed, including power loss method, node method, control volume method, CFD method and neural network method. The features and applications of softwares which could be use to simulate thermal characteristics of hydraulic system were discussed, including HYTTHA, HyPneu, EASY5, DSHplus, AMESim, Modelica. The development trend of hydraulic system’s thermal characteristics modeling and simulation was introduced.