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The Hyperloop

43K views 158 replies 42 participants last post by  alr1970 
#1 · (Edited)

(Seemingly nothing to do with the story, but there IS a video as well)

Sunday Telegraph:

"Inside the Hyperloop: the pneumatic travel system faster than the speed of sound"

The “cross between Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table” will deliver passengers between US cities faster than the speed of sound.

The history of transport is replete with dreamers who have concocted such schemes for getting people from A to B in previously unimagined haste. And many of them have remained just that, impractical ideas on a drawing board that will never see the light of day.

But the latest mysterious project, which has had the technology world buzzing for months, has one crucial difference. Its backer is a Silicon Valley wunderkind with a proven track record of turning science fiction into reality."​

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...el-system-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound.html



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#2 ·



BBC: "Elon Musk unveils San Francisco-LA 'Hyperloop' idea"

Capsules could depart as often as every 30 seconds and could also carry cars, travelling at up to 760mph (1,220 km/h), nearly the speed of sound.

Passengers seated in cabins inside the capsules would experience slightly more than the force of gravity, more like on an aeroplane than a roller coaster, he said on a conference call.

He said he would likely build a prototype of the concept, but not immediately, as he is busy with his commercial space project SpaceX.

A demonstration model would take up to four years to complete, he said.

He said the concept would best work between cities closer than 1,000 miles, because beyond that supersonic air travel would be preferable.​





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23677205


Fun at retro-events:
 
#3 ·
Much quieter too, pinging people around the place inside a plastic mains sewer pipe makes a certain sense to me. Having routine maintenance done by a few plumbers (as required) does too. :)

The first application of the principle involved (minus the semi vacumn) was in South Dublin in 1844 by the way and the main problem with atmospheric railways was the materials used in the 19th century and leather flaps freezing in winter etc. Materials have moved on a long way since.
 
#4 ·
It sounds like it is technically feasible, but what struck me is the costings - the infrastructure will probably cost several multiples of what he believes. How for example will it be possible to prevent any level of damage to the pylons from road vehicles leaving the Interstate highway?

The sheer lack of capacity is also obvious - even at the maximum rate of 1 capsule every 30 seconds carrying 28 passengers, that is only 168 seats every 3 minutes. Compare that to HS2, which can carry up to 1100 seats every three minutes.

Not that I believe capsules could actually safely follow each other only 30 seconds apart. Imagine one capsule hitting an obstacle (which would shatter it and the pipe in a split second). By the time the situation was known the following capsule might have less than 20 seconds to stop from 760mph - that kind of retardation is what F1 drivers face, safely secured by very tight 3-point harnesses and HANs collars. It would injure or even kill unprepared passengers. Assuming of course the capsules could be made to slow down so quickly.....
 
#6 ·


I'm sure the nimbys in the Chilterns would welcome seeing one of those in their backyard.:eek:hno:
 
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#8 ·
It shares a lot of similar technology. Biggest problem I can see is that the individual hyperloop vehicles can't be very long or hold many passengers (max 28) because there is a limit to the amount of air the compressor at the front can possibly suck in to keep the vehicle 'floating'. You can't have a train of such vehicles.

A maglev in a bigger tube would also benefit from very low air resistance, but could at least have multiple vehicles and be able to transport maybe 500 punters every 90 seconds? It would also mean an emergency stop wouldn't risk killing it's passengers as it would have at least 75 seconds to stop from 760mph rather than 20 seconds.
 
#9 ·
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As Bob Monkhouse said,
"They all laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian. Well, ha, there're not laughing now! ..."





So Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Is Actually Getting Kinda Serious

The Hyperloop sounds like science fiction, Elon Musk’s pipe dream: leapfrog high speed rail and go right to packing us into capsules that fling us across the country in hours using what are, essentially, pneumatic tubes. It sounds crazy, when you think about it.

It’s starting to look a little less crazy.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced today that it has signed agreements to work with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and global engineering design firm Aecom. The two companies will lend their expertise in exchange for stock options in the company, joining the army of engineers from the likes of Boeing and SpaceX already lending their time to the effort.

“It’s a validation of the fact that our model works,” says Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. “It’s the next step.”​


http://www.wired.com/2015/08/elon-musk-hyperloop-project-is-getting-kinda-serious/


(Didn't Oerlikon build the first Euston DC-line trains?)

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#12 ·
Apart from the niggly problems of it being unproven technology, fail-deadly and probably highly uncomfortable, the biggest problem is pointed out by Vulcan's Finest - its theoretical maximum capacity is far less than a conventional high speed rail route. What problem is it trying to solve exactly?
 
#16 ·
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They haven't gone away.


New Civil Engineer:



Bibop Gresta, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies chief operating officer and deputy chairman


Hyperloop plan revolutionises high speed rail,
says developer



The Californian Hyperloop could revolutionise travel and undermine the validity of spending multiple billions on high speed rail systems worldwide, according to one of the futuristic transport scheme’s prominent developers.

Current high speed rail is based on outdated concepts including restrictive standardised rail gauges, said Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) chief operating officer and deputy chairman Bibop Gresta on Wednesday.

“We need evolution,” Gresta said. “Rail gauges are based on Roman measures of the width of two horses’ rear ends,” said, adding that this fact might not be exactly true. However, he stressed that devising a truly new transport system could prove much cheaper than refreshing a traditional rail guage based idea.

His organisation is one of a few taking up the mantle of the scheme first proposed by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk to devise a super fast 1,220km/h low pressure tube transport system that could take 3,400 passengers an hour on the 610km journey between San Francisco and Los Angeles in the US. Travel time would be just half an hour.

Speaking at a Construct//Disrupt fringe event to Digital Construction Week, Gresta said Musk developed the concept amid frustration at what he saw was great inefficiencies in the $68bn (£44bn), 14 year long California High Speed Rail scheme, which broke ground earlier this year and will also connect the state’s two largest metropolitan areas but with journey times of just under three hours.

In stark contrast, the Hyperloop could cost £6.5bn or even as little as £3.9bn if technologies being developed by his organisation work out, with costs recouped within six years.

Gresta also challenged traditional ticket pricing concepts. One of the fears associated with development of high speed rail, including the UK’s High Speed 2 (HS2) scheme, is that recouping the multi-billion pound price tag drives up operators’ ticket prices.

“Are tickets really the best way to monetise people?” he asked. “The travel can be free – we don’t only have to think about advertisers [to make travel free]. There are other ways but we’re not going to disclose how right now.”

He said that the system could be deployed in the UK as a rival to HS2 and had the potential to be more ambitious in reaching further than the planned route to Manchester and Leeds or Sheffield – taking passengers from anywhere in London to Glasgow in 45 minutes.

HTT is breaking ground on an 8km long test track in Quay Valley, a new solar -powered city being developed midway between San Francisco and LA, at the beginning of 2016 with the aim of it being complete by 2018, where maximum speeds will be trialled.

Final permissions were also being sought in the next couple of weeks to install what Gresta said would be the world’s longest billboard for advertising to run alongside the track.

Echoing the unconventional scheme is the unconventional way HTT has been set up. Some 500 engineers from 21 countries – equating to 80 new people coming on board each month – have committed their time and expertise. Students and professionals will be offered stock options in the organisation instead of a salary.

“We’re not a company, we’re a movement,” Gresta said, by way of explanation of how his largely crowd-sourced organisation works.

The aim is for HTT to go public on the US Nasdaq possibly before the end of this year.

The challenge is still to determine how the system works. Described as a “capsule full of people in a low pressure tube on pylons that goes really fast” each will replicate the same atmosphere in a plane when it goes above 11,000km and the plan is to make each capsule self-sufficient with its own ventilation and other systems in place.

“We over-engineered the pylons not only to withstand earthquakes but also to see the pylon holistically,” Gresta added. “The pylon is an ecosystem – they can be vertical gardens and harness wildlife. We can collect rainwater and humidity.

“We’re not hippies. It’s because it’s good for the planet but also because it’s profitable,” he said.

The crowdsourcing of ideas is not limited to those who can make a direct technical contribution to the scheme. A “community” of 20,000 are involved with decision-making, including giving feedback on potential new routes, if the first option is proven to work.​



Ambitious: American hyperloop plan for fast Los Angeles-San Francisco link

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#18 ·
3,400 passengers per hour. That's equivalent to 2-3 high speed trains per hour. So apart from it being completely unproven technology with considerable safety issues to work out, having the same if not greater routing problems to overcome, it won't actually provide anything near the same capacity as a 'traditional' high speed rail line. Where do I sign up?
 
#19 ·
I'm a little surprised by the naysayers and sceptics. I wonder how many of you would have written exactly the same things about railways in 1829? How much has capacity and speed increased since then? Fact of the matter is, railway technology is nearly 200 years old (as is much of our infrastructure). We might have tweaked a few things, but the premise of connected iron rail and flanged wheels is remarkably unchanged in that time. If technologies of the future are to become technologies of the present, a leap of faith is required. The UK used to be good at that sort of thing. World leaders, in fact...

Not detracting from the significant challenges, but if someone is prepared to give the Hyperloop a go - and pour money into developing the concept - then fair play to them. With regards to Maglev, having ridden on the Shanghai Airport connection, I dearly hope someone takes a punt at operating a proper system soon because all it takes is one tried and tested success to make the technology truly revolutionary.
 
#20 ·
I'm a chartered engineer who works in R&D of existing technologies and new product development, where typically my projects must have a small margin of error. At risk of blowing my own trumpet, I think I'm qualified to have an opinion on this.

Railway tech may be 200 years old, but that's just a testament to how good it is as a rapid mass transport system. Suddenly changing this over night to a Hyperloop type system will be a nightmare, and disaster.

Now, it may happen in the future - but not within our lifetime due to the amount of R&D that has to go into the entire project.

Let me ask you a question which may be going on a tangent. How long have engineers, mathematicians and scientists been researching fusion power and its feasibility? Every year engineers, mathematicians and scientists keep saying its 30 years away. But that keeps getting pushed back. There's a reason for that - there needs to be more R&D to ensure successful conception and implementation to reduce the risk of a hazard.
 
#22 ·
To be truly transformational as the railway was 180 years ago would be pretty difficult for any new technology. Over most distances in the UK the hyperloop would not be transformative enough to make it compelling compared to high speed rail. The USA might be different due to the generally greater distances involved.

I wouldn't dismiss the technology, it does seem to be do-able. So is Maglev. However I believe both systems would have to demonstrate significant cost advantages over existing transport systems in the real world to justify the huge capital expenditure needed when starting from scratch.
 
#23 ·
Whilst I'm sure that some kind of working system is technically feasible, and would be really cool, getting it to work safely and economically is the really hard part. After all, the last time supersonic passenger transport was approved, it needed the funding support and R&D effort of two major countries.

I'm particularly sceptical if this is supposed to be a pneumatic tube... At such speeds, the vehicle will be extremely sensitive to any environmental changes (as in, hit a bump or turbulent air, or air leak in the tube -> instant death), so the smoothness and integrity of the tube is of paramount importance. Yet the tube also has to withstand sufficient air pressure to levitate and propagate the whole vehicle? And the expelled air has to be evacuated before the following vehicle 30s behind arrives? Seems bonkers to me.

Surely an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, approach would be safer here. Take an existing proven technology - maglev trains - and put it in a partially evacuated tube, and make it go 25-50% faster.

A couple of additional observations: by the time any system like this gets off the ground, supersonic passenger airplanes for rich people will already be a reality, and they will work with existing infrastructure (airports). Also, if the intended route is Los Angeles to SF, why, especially, does it need to go at 1200km/h? A one-hour journey (600 km/h) would be perfectly acceptable to begin with.
 
#24 ·
I guess the question is - what marks out new technologies that are likely to be successful? I think the ability to develop organically is a big driver. Some examples:

Cars - these could develop because roads were already in place. Once car technology matured and a market was created, new infrastructure was required. But the system could develop bit by bit.

Trains - in a similar way, these developed organically from mine trackways. A new propulsion system (the steam engine) was developed which could work with the existing infrastructure, which was then further developed. Later on, the propulsion system was changed.

Planes - these started off with relatively small scale investment by the Wright brothers. Then the technology was improved quite rapidly but step by step. No large scale infrastructure was needed until it had built up a market for it.

Where big changes in technology have occurred in a single leap requiring a large investment by a country, these have often been associated with military development - nuclear power, jet engines, rockets etc.
 
#25 ·
Steam trains took off due to being able to carry canal boat loads at horse galloping speeds. It therefore gave the best of both worlds, and left horse and cart for local journeys, and many canals filled in (eg the Croydon Canal: opened in the 1820s, but was filled in and had a railway on top of it before the end of the 1830s)

Hyperloop can do the speed thing - going faster than planes, but not the capacity thing that railways give. As it has the infrastructure requirements of trains - a fixed-ROW built at roughly ground level along the whole route (rather than planes' runways where you want to serve), it needs to provide some of the benefits that High Speed Rail gives to be worth building - when the key one is capacity, it falls flat on its face.

And railways are able to branch, have different stopping patterns, etc (in part due to bucket loads of capacity meaning that you can use it in more interesting ways). Concorde at least could fly to a variety of airports (any with a runway long enough) and fly LHR-LHR eclipse specials and so on.

Ignoring the issues of new infrastructure technology (which is keeping Maglev back - it can couple the speed of planes with the capacity of trains), the question is the same as the Aviation industry faced - reasonable-capacity and high-speed (Concorde) or high-capacity and reasonable-speed (747, A380). Look who won there.
 
#30 ·
I have read the documentation about the Hyperloop and to me it seems an amateur effort, both in scoping and in forecasting costs. The idea that you could build a ground-level transport network between London and Glasgow for £6bn is, frankly, laughable. The tunnel from central London to the M25 would cost more than that.

And then, as Si has pointed out, the capacity of the pods is so small as to fail to meet the needs of the future transport in the country. Then you consider the needs for emergency evacuation, resilience during power failures, land acquisition and ownership, planning permission, ground conditions, station locations, onward transport links, operational requirements and arrangements…
 
#32 ·
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How exciting!





Hyperloop pods will be designed
and tested by 124 teams in 2016


Teams will present concepts for "pods" that
can then be run on an actual test track



SpaceX has selected 124 teams of mostly college student engineers to participate in a Hyperloop Pod competition at the end of January. The teams will present their concepts for pods, which will then compete on a test track next summer in front of judges from SpaceX, Tesla, and universities.

The hyperloop, as outlined by Elon Musk two years ago, would involve a pod or capsule moving at nearly the speed of sound inside a tube elevated above the ground. This kind of track system could provide rapid transportation between cities 1,500 km or less apart, Musk said, after which supersonic aircraft would probably be faster or cheaper. Passengers might travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 30 minutes, according to Musk. The idea was hailed as visionary by some, but others have criticized it for being far from practical.

Although Musk has said he is focused on launching rockets with SpaceX and building electric cars with Tesla, he has nonetheless sought to nurture the project along by developing a functional prototype. To that end, he invited young engineers to propose ideas for a pod. The teams, from 27 US states and 20 countries, will have their concepts judged on January 29 and 30 at Texas A&M University in College Station.

Those selected to advance will then need to find sponsors and build prototypes for testing on a 1-mile test track near the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, next summer. “It’s not really known whether this is a solvable problem,” Gregory Chamitoff, an astronaut and professor of engineering at Texas A&M, told Ars. “This may transform the way we travel around the future. We don’t know. This is one of the problems where if you don’t tell the students it’s impossible they’ll figure out a way to do it.”

Chamitoff said engineering students have really responded to the challenge because it poses a real-world problem. Additionally, he said, SpaceX has “this magical ability” to inspire because it has big dreams when it comes to spaceflight, and it has already done a lot in terms of flying the Falcon 9 rocket and supplying the International Space Station.

Many questions have been raised about the financial viability of a new transportation system, but Musk has argued that the pods and linear motors to propel them along the tracks will be relatively inexpensive, costing “several hundred million dollars.” The tube itself, rising above the ground on pylons with a narrow footprint roughly equal to that of a telephone pole, would cost several billion dollars to construct alongside highways between major cities, he acknowledges.

However, Musk believes the hyperloop makes more sense when compared to high speed rails. “A ground based high speed rail system by comparison needs up to a 100-foot-wide swath of dedicated land to build up foundations for both directions,” he wrote. “It is also noisy, with nothing to contain the sound, and needs unsightly protective fencing to prevent animals, people, or vehicles from getting onto the track.”

Musk said the hyperloop idea grew out of his disappointment with California’s massive, $67 billion high-speed rail project that would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles and cut the travel time to 2 hours and 40 minutes. That initiative, supported by a $10 billion public bond issue, was too slow, too costly, and not forward-thinking enough for Musk.

“The underlying motive for a statewide mass transit system is a good one,” he wrote. “It would be great to have an alternative to flying or driving, but obviously only if it is actually better than flying or driving. The train in question would be both slower, more expensive to operate (if unsubsidized), and less safe by two orders of magnitude than flying, so why would anyone use it?”

Now, in about six weeks, some physical manifestations of Musk's ideas will be first to be put to the test.​




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#33 ·
Elon Musk: “The underlying motive for a statewide mass transit system is a good one,”

So why is he proposing building something that is clearly not mass transit? :bash:

And I laugh at the idea that people won't use the trains as they are 2 orders of magnitude more unsafe (it's actually 1 order of magnitude - 0.6 deaths/bn km for rail and 0.05/bn km for air - ie pretty much negligible on either mode) but he proposes a new mode of transport that looks like a death trap should anything go a tiny bit wrong.
 
#34 · (Edited)
There's quite a good technical summary and analysis at http://www.gizmag.com/hyperloop-musk-analysis/28672/.

After reading that, I withdraw some of my earlier scepticism... it seems a lot of thought has gone into the design of the system and the route. I now see the potential advantage of an air cushion over magnetic levitation. In particular, most of the thrust is provided by linear motors, not pneumatic pressure as I had feared. The stators (stationary parts) of the motor are miles long in places, but only need to be placed along a tiny percentage of the route.

Still some large question marks over the safety and capacity, of course.
 
#39 ·
I have no great attraction to this project but Musk has done some pretty impressive stuff with rockets and electric cars. In fact with regard to cars I believe he is responsible for brining electric cars to the mainstream. I would not underestimate him, he has money, motivation and intellect; quite a potent combination.
 
#35 ·
I think capacity is the deal breaker. It won't work unless they can turn it into a mass market, and they'll need a heck of a lot more than 28 seats per vehicle for that. The problem is then that the structures will need to be beefed up, which puts paid to the idea of supporting piers with a 'telephone pole' footprint (assuming that was ever viable, which it isn't).

I also noticed the route curve radii assume passengers can take 0.5g horizontal acceleration comfortably. It's a pretty heroic assumption.
 
#36 ·
I think capacity is the deal breaker. It won't work unless they can turn it into a mass market, and they'll need a heck of a lot more than 28 seats per vehicle for that. The problem is then that the structures will need to be beefed up, which puts paid to the idea of supporting piers with a 'telephone pole' footprint (assuming that was ever viable, which it isn't)..
What I find almost child-like is the belief that just because the pods will be lightweight so must be the track and supporting columns. Yet the consequences of any of the colums being pushed out of alignment by even a couple of centimetres would be dire.

The kind of things that we know can fall on railway tracks or undermine them / hit them could not be eliminated.

Lorries
Agricultural vehicles
Other road vehicles
Flooding / ground disturbance
Falling trees

for starters.
 
#37 ·
If it operated with a frequency of one vehicle per minute, that would be 1680 passengers per hour, which would be sufficient to replace all Los Angeles - San Francisco air traffic (about 6M passengers per year)! An emergency braking system operating at -1g would decelerate the vehicle from top speed to zero in about 30s, so such a high frequency is at least theoretically possible.

Given the intended acceleration of 1g - which will switch on and off fairly abruptly - this is only suitable for healthy individuals, who could also handle lateral 0.5g. The curves may be banked anyway.

Re. safety, I'm not excessively concerned about external disturbances. The same things could happen to regular high-speed rail, yet that operates (mostly) safely. I would be more worried about material fatigue and track maintenance.

I started out sceptical, but the more I think about it, the more I am actually coming round to the idea...
 
#38 ·
If it operated with a frequency of one vehicle per minute, that would be 1680 passengers per hour, which would be sufficient to replace all Los Angeles - San Francisco air traffic (about 6M passengers per year)!
But not create any growth from the more frequent services, or serve intermediate markets.

With HSR a similar level of capacity can be achieved with half-hourly trains, and you can keep going up to about 18tph without any problems.

This is the UK forums, and the Hyperloop is completely pointless in the UK as it doesn't provide anywhere near enough capacity.

Perhaps the American West has some uses of fast, frequent and low capacity routes, but you are looking at ones with a lot of nothing between the end points (eg Victorville - Vegas, Vegas - Phoenix, Vegas - Salt Lake City, SLC - Denver, etc) rather than through California's Central Valley.
 
#43 ·
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Whooosh, it's back!





Is Hyperloop the future of high-speed travel?



The excitingly named Brogan BamBrogan - yes, he changed it; no, I didn't ask why - is taking me on the very first tour of 50 acres (0.2 sq km) of desert that will, in the next year, become a test track for the Hyperloop.

Originally conceived by Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk, Hyperloop is an idea of colossal ambition and science-fiction proportions.

Passengers and freight will sit in pods propelled at high speed from city to city, inside low-pressure tubes on stilts above the landscape.​



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35361093



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