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Transportation Education Technology The 2000 Beanies

Student Engineers Build Hyperloop Test Pods That Set a New Speed Record (bbc.com) 92

Posted by BeauHD from the hyperloop-hat-trick dept.
Engineering students from the Technical University of Munich have won a hyperloop competition that aims to refine the technologies that could underpin the super-fast transport system. According to the BBC, "The team's pod hit 457km/h (290mph) on a 1.2km (0.75 mile) test track." This marks the third win in a row for the team. From the report: In the latest round of the competition, the Munich team, WARR Hyperloop, outpaced rival capsules, which could manage speeds of only 88mph (Delft University) and 55mph (EPF Loop, from Switzerland), to beat its own record speed, 323km/h, set in the second competition, in September 2017. In a change from earlier competitions, all the pods being tested this time had to be self-propelled. Previously, the pods could rely on a SpaceX-built "pusher" vehicle that helped them travel down the test tube.
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Student Engineers Build Hyperloop Test Pods That Set a New Speed Record More

Student Engineers Build Hyperloop Test Pods That Set a New Speed Record

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  • Going about it backwards? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jerry ( 6400 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @07:42PM (#56997888)

    Rather than pump the air out of the tube, treat the tube like a wind tunnel and blow air through the tube, or through injectors along the tube, at what ever speed you want the vehicle to go. For 100 - 500 Km stretches pumping tons of air out of the tube would take hours and maintaining the vacuum would take a lot of expensive energy. The inside of the tube could be dimpled or treated in some way to reduce the Reynolds Number. The positive pressure would keep the weather out and make leaks easy to find ... they'd whistle.

    • Re: Going about it backwards? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @08:23PM (#56998030) Journal
      Just the opposite. Pushing air down the tube is very energy intensive to get it up to speeds. The air will drag on the tube, so no, that is not good. Finally, while it will take energy to drop the pressure, it will be little to no energy to maintain, assuming tight seals.
      • If you get one seal failure anywhere along the line, it renders the entire stretch unusable. A tube going the length of, say, a state, would contain thousands of seals. The mean time to failure becomes way too small to make the system usable.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • " For 100 - 500 Km stretches pumping tons of air out of the tube would take hours and maintaining the vacuum would take a lot of expensive energy."

      Of course. The hyperloop is an idiotic idea that goes back over 200 years. There is a reason it doesn't work. The idea of maintaining any kind of vacuum of any sort in such a system is preposterous.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by oic0 ( 1864384 )
      How would you moderate acceleration? You'd need a larger diameter tube to allow the excess air to bypass the pod otherwise it would be like being fired out of an air rifle.

    • Rather than pump the air out of the tube, treat the tube like a wind tunnel and blow air through the tube

      That works for short distances and low speeds where airflow is laminar. At higher velocities, the airflow will become turbulent and drain energy.

      Using air pressure for a long high speed tube like SF to LA would be insanely inefficient.

      Pneumatic tubes have been around for centuries. There are good reasons that their applications are limited.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    MonoRail... MonoRail.... MonoRail....

  • Finally! (Score:3)

    by sunking2 ( 521698 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @08:00PM (#56997958)

    A fast and efficient way for kids to get to the Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good.

  • 290 mph is impressive (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @09:14PM (#56998194) Journal
    I am curious about the full conditions of the track/tube that they do not tell us about. However, the average commercial jet cruises around 540 mph. So this is more than 1/2 of typical commercial jets. So, they are getting there. In addition, hyperloop should be cheaper to run than a jet. While tracks have to be put in, and pressure brought down, hyperloop should have much lower labor hours, lower drag (9000 meter vs 36000 meter ), and much lower energy costs.

  • Mixing units (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23, 2018 @09:38PM (#56998254)

    TFS mixes mph and km/h. Poor practice to report the slower ones in mph and the fastest in km/h; it makes the difference look larger. It's large enough that you don't need to exaggerate it.

  • China Trains (Score:3)

    by balsy2001 ( 941953 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @11:03PM (#56998482)
    Normal high speed trains (CRH) in China travel at 300 kph. The maglev train from Shanghai to Pudong International travels at ~430 kph. I have been on both types at these speed (they conveniently put the current speed in every car). The maglev does always travel this fast, ostensibly due to energy demand during peak usage (couple of times I was on it we only broke 300 kph). The shanghai maglev is about 30km long. Hyper loop needs to be much faster to impress me given the existing in-service trains.
  • To be fair, the Delft University entry possibly reached a speed greater than what was entered in the official record, but the judges were obligated to use the speed the pod had obtained when it inexplicably vanished, leaving behind only a trail of flames.*


    *As an interesting coincidence, it should be noted that the Delft University pod most closely resembled the ones depicted in Elon Musk's initial concept drawings.

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