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Hyperloop

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The Hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and freight transportation, first used to describe an open-source vactrain design released by a joint team from Tesla and SpaceX. Hyperloop is described as a sealed tube or system of tubes with low air pressure through which a pod may travel substantially free of air resistance or friction. The Hyperloop could potentially convey people or objects at airline or hypersonic speeds while being energy efficient compared to existing high speed rail systems. This, if implemented, may reduce travel times compared to train and airplane travel over distances of under approximately 1,500 kilometres (930 miles). Elon Musk first publicly mentioned the Hyperloop in 2012. His initial concept incorporated reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear induction motors and axial compressors. The Hyperloop Alpha concept was first published in August 2013, proposing and examining a route running from the Los Ange

History

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Musk first mentioned that he was thinking about a concept for a "fifth mode of transport", calling it the Hyperloop , in July 2012 at a PandoDaily event in Santa Monica, California. This hypothetical high-speed mode of transportation would have the following characteristics: immunity to weather, collision free, twice the speed of a plane, low power consumption, and energy storage for 24-hour operations. The name Hyperloop was chosen because it would go in a loop. Musk envisions the more advanced versions will be able to go at hypersonic speed. In May 2013, Musk likened the Hyperloop to a "cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table". From late 2012 until August 2013, a group of engineers from both Tesla and SpaceX worked on the conceptual modeling of Hyperloop. An early system design was published in the Tesla and SpaceX blogs which describes one potential design, function, pathway, and cost of a hyperloop system. According to the alpha design, p

Theory and operation

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Developments in high-speed rail have historically been impeded by the difficulties in managing friction and air resistance, citation needed both of which become substantial when vehicles approach high speeds. The vactrain concept theoretically eliminates these obstacles by employing magnetically levitating trains in evacuated (airless) or partly evacuated tubes, allowing for speeds of thousands of miles per hour. However, the high cost of maglev and the difficulty of maintaining a vacuum over large distances has prevented this type of system from ever being built. The Hyperloop resembles a vactrain system but operates at approximately one millibar (100 Pa) of pressure. Initial design concept edit The Hyperloop concept operates by sending specially designed "capsules" or "pods" through a steel tube maintained at a partial vacuum. In Musk's original concept, each capsule floats on a 0.02–0.05 in (0.5–1.3 mm) layer of air provided under pressure to air-caster &quo

Hyperloop companies

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Virgin Hyperloop One edit Virgin Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop One, and before that, Hyperloop Technologies) was incorporated in 2014 and has built a team of 280+, when? including engineers, technicians, welders, and machinists. It has raised more than US$160 million in capital from investors including DP World, Sherpa Capital, Formation 8, 137 Ventures, Caspian Venture Capital, Fast Digital, GE Ventures, and SNCF. citation needed Hyperloop One was founded by Shervin Pishevar and Brogan BamBrogan. BamBrogan left the company in July 2016, along with three of the other founding members of Arrivo. Hyperloop One then selected co-founder Josh Giegel, a former SpaceX engineer, to be CTO. Hyperloop One has a 75,000-square foot Innovation Campus in downtown LA and a 100,000-square foot machine and tooling shop in North Las Vegas. By 2017, it had completed a 500m Development Loop (DevLoop) in North Las Vegas, Nevada. On 11 May 2016, Hyperloop One conducted the first live trial of Hyper

Hyperloop pod competition

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A number of student and non-student teams were participating in a Hyperloop pod competition in 2015–16, and at least 22 of them built hardware to compete on a sponsored hyperloop test track in mid-2016. In June 2015, SpaceX announced that they would sponsor a Hyperloop pod design competition, and would build a 1-mile-long (1.6 km) subscale test track near SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California for the competitive event in 2016. SpaceX stated in their announcement, "Neither SpaceX nor Elon Musk is affiliated with any Hyperloop companies. While we are not developing a commercial Hyperloop ourselves, we are interested in helping to accelerate development of a functional Hyperloop prototype." More than 700 teams had submitted preliminary applications by July, and detailed competition rules were released in August. Intent to Compete submissions were due in September 2015 with more detailed tube and technical specification released by SpaceX in October. A preliminary d

Criticism and human factor considerations

Some critics of Hyperloop focus on the experience—possibly unpleasant and frightening—of riding in a narrow, sealed, windowless capsule inside a sealed steel tunnel, that is subjected to significant acceleration forces; high noise levels due to air being compressed and ducted around the capsule at near-sonic speeds; and the vibration and jostling. Even if the tube is initially smooth, ground may shift with seismic activity. At high speeds, even minor deviations from a straight path may add considerable buffeting. This is in addition to practical and logistical questions regarding how to best deal with safety issues such as equipment malfunction, accidents, and emergency evacuations. Other maglev trains are already in use, which avoid much of the added costs of Hyperloop. The SCMaglev in Japan has demonstrated 603 km/h (375 mph) without a vacuum tube, by using an extremely aerodynamic train design. It also avoids the cost and time required to pressurize and depressurize the exit and ent

Political and economic considerations

The alpha proposal projected that cost savings compared with conventional rail would come from a combination of several factors. The small profile and elevated nature of the alpha route would enable Hyperloop to be constructed primarily in the median of Interstate 5. However, whether this would be truly feasible is a matter of debate. The low profile would reduce tunnel boring requirements and the light weight of the capsules is projected to reduce construction costs over conventional passenger rail. It was asserted that there would be less right-of-way opposition and environmental impact as well due to its small, sealed, elevated profile versus that of a rail easement; however, other commentators contend that a smaller footprint does not guarantee less opposition. In criticizing this assumption, mass transportation writer Alon Levy said, "In reality, an all-elevated system (which is what Musk proposes with the Hyperloop) is a bug rather than a feature. Central Valley land is chea

Related projects

Historical edit The concept of transportation of passengers in pneumatic tubes is not new. The first patent to transport goods in tubes was taken out in 1799 by the British mechanical engineer and inventor George Medhurst. In 1812, Medhurst wrote a book detailing his idea of transporting passengers and goods through air-tight tubes using air propulsion. In the early 1800s, there were other similar systems proposed or experimented with and were generally known as an atmospheric railway although this term is also used for systems where the propulsion is provided by a separate pneumatic tube to the train tunnel itself. One of the earliest was the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway which operated near Dublin between 1844 and 1854. The Crystal Palace pneumatic railway operated in London around 1864 and used large fans, some 22 ft (6.7 m) in diameter, that were powered by a steam engine. The tunnels are now lost but the line operated successfully for over a year. Operated from 1870 to 1873, the Beac