Hyperloop - The Future of Transportation
Billed
as the fastest way to cross the surface of earth, hyper-loop represents the
greatest leap in transport infrastructure for generations with passengers
sitting in pots that travel its airline speed through pressurized tubes using
electric propulsion and magnetic levitation the concept promises to slash many
times between major cities from several hours to matters of minutes whilst it
may feel like science fiction hyper-loop is now on cusp of becoming a reality.
This is the story behind the concept that’s about to revolutionize our world.
 |
| Illustration - Hyperloop |
Hyper-loop
was first conceived in 2012 by Tesla and Space-X founder Elon Musk. Musk set out
his vision for a futuristic super high speed transportation system. They would
see passenger pod move through a partial vacuum in steel tubes addressing the
two key factors that slow down conventional vehicles friction and air
resistance exploring a potential route between Los Angeles and San Francisco
must believe that his concept could slash the eight hour bus ride, four hour
train journey and convoluted three hour air travel experience between two
cities to just 30 minutes. Under Musk’s first hyper-loop proposal, he suggested
that compression fans would move air around the passenger pods to minimize drag
and create air bearings beneath them floating them off the surface of the
tubes. It should be noted that Musk’s early hyper-loop concept is not a million
miles away from Isambard kingdom Brunel atmospheric railway that ran between
Exeter and Plymouth in the UK from 1847 to 1848. This system moved carriages
with pressurized air were extracted from a pipe that ran between the rails by
pumping stations situated roughly every 3 miles along the route creating a
vacuum. A piston connected within this pipe was connected to the train which
pulled it forward. Despite its initial success the leather flaps that made the
vacuum pipes airtight soon began to fail causing air leak from the system and
Brunel railway was abandoned. With an estimated price tag close to six billion
US dollars Musk’s first hyper-loop concepts never came to fruition but the
impressive idea and potential to link cities in such a direct way sparked
intense interest, from inception mosque had always stated that concept of hyper-loop
would be open source and he encourage other to come together and develop the
necessary technology independently from his involvement. This led to the
formation of several startups and students teams developing various aspects of
Hyper-loop technology with varying degrees of success. Now several fully
fledged companies are making significantly strides to bring hyper-loop systems
into reality. Hyper-loop transportation technologies or HTT are making
aggressive advancements and recently constructed a full scale test track in
France but the clear leaders of the pack in the current standings are Virgin
hyper-loop one .
 |
| Illustration - Hyperloop |
Virgin
Hyper-loop one is on track to achieve their bold ambition of bringing a hyper-loop
system into operation by 2021. Originally formed in 2014 as hyper-loop 1, the
company was rebranded following a significant investment from sir Richard
Branson in 2017, deviating slightly from Musk’s original plan Virgin Hyper-loop
One’s technology combines two basic principles. The first one is magnetic
levitation or maglev, a technology already used in mono rails to lift the
passengers pod moves them along their rails. Magnetic levitation uses two sets
of magnets, one to repel train from track and lifted upwards and other to move
floating train along the train at considerable speed with reduced friction. The
second principle is the use of low pressure vacuum sealed environment for the passenger’s
pods to travel through. By removing most of air from the tubes and having no
contact with the ground, the pods face little to no resistance as they move.
Air pressure inside the tube are equivalent to flying two hundred thousand feet
above sea level, such an environment enables the pods to reach speeds of over
760 mph using very little energy. By virtue of being in a tube the system is
protected from weather and can operate in almost any climatic conditions.
Virgin hyper-loop one’s system is controlled by advanced software that ensures
acceleration and deceleration occurred gradually going relatively unnoticed by
those travelling inside. Having built a 500 meter track in Nevada desert Virgin
hyper-loop one have carried out several tests focusing on individual aspects of the system and a
complete full scale systems test in May 2017. The propulsion braking levitation
and vacuum systems are all performing well and the teams have achieved a top
speed of over 240 mph to date.
Why Hyper-loop?
The
advantages of hyper-loop are considerable like train stations. Hyper-loop
stations called portals are planned to be located within inner-city areas with
easy links transport infrastructure, this gives hyper-loop systems a distinct
advantage over air travel where airports tends to be located beyond city limits
with fewer accessibility options. Additionally the system is being additionally
developed to function on a turn up and go principle without a lengthy check-in
process and with accelerated advanced security checks. Another clear benefit of
hyper-loop is its speed, if hyper-loop could significantly reduce the travel
time between cities it could be possible to live in a completely different city
or part of the country from where you work with commute from where you work
with a commute notice similar in length to one you perhaps take today. This
opens a wide range of housing and employment opportunities with people no
longer having to live close to where they work.
0 Comments