Super fast travel Hyperloop transport system

[Thor.]

NAYYYYYYYY, We will soon find out, if it was the car back in the early 1900 it would be the same argument. :yes:

[JimboUK]

How will he maintain a vacuum on such a scale? the largest vacuum chamber at the moment is tiny in comparison to what he's suggesting, it's also maintained by NASA at great expense and kept well away from Joe Public. The expense of creating and maintaining a vacuum on that scale would be astronomical, the energy consumption alone would be enough to ensure the venture isn't commercially viable. The pods would need to be built to the same standard as spacecraft because even a tiny leak could prove fatal, they would also have to remain to airtight even in the event of an impact. They would also have to carry a large air supply, enough not just for the journey but enough to keep people alive while the pipe is re-pressurised in the event of a failure.

[Vagrant0]

NAYYYYYYYY, We will soon find out, if it was the car back in the early 1900 it would be the same argument. :yes:

 

If you mean, requiring 40-50 years of infrastructure to be built, sweeping improvements in technology and mass production methods, massive social changes, and the creation of vast civil projects the likes of which havn't been seen since (and arguably still weren't worth the cost (See Tennessee Valley)) just to make long distance travel viable... Then yes, we would be in agreement.

 

Before 1940's even a trip across a state by motorcar pretty much required carrying spare wheels, engine parts, and arguably a mechanic on hand. Just the act of trying to start a car was in itself a challenge before battery technology had advanced enough to have an onboard starter motor... and even then there were significant reliability issues. Although the Model T was a car that was affordable for the middle class, it's main redeeming feature was the standardized parts that were in plentiful supply. It wasn't until the end of WWII that automotive technology had advanced and the creation of federal highways made long distance travel by car viable for most people. With the exception of the Autobahn, most of Europe wouldn't have reliable roadways until the 70's or in some cases, the 90's. Even still, driving around most of the older cities in Europe can be an absolute nightmare just because the buildings are too narrowly spaced for modern traffic and people weren't so keen about leveling large portions of the city just to widen the road or establish throughways.

 

So yes, there are some rather good parallels here, just nothing that supports the idea of a quick adoption of new transportation technology.

[Thor.]

I can see a transportation revolution in the making :laugh:

 

More up to date youtube video, the word is spreading.

 

 

July 18

 

Description states its already in a working state.

 

this is quite exciting :laugh:

 

its a fairly old idea actually, meglev used something similar

It uses the same concept but in a more compact and quicker

 

 

The vehicle, creating millionaire and founder of PayPal, Elon Musk, will be presented on August 12. With capacity for a small group of people will scroll through a narrow tube at supersonic speed.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Thor.

[Harbringe]

Now multiply the complexity of such a system with millions , if not 10's of millions of people needing to use the same system . All needing to access a system that has objects travelling in it at mach 3.5 . This is a pipe dream at best and a disaster waiting to happen at worst.

[Vindekarr]

And with such a delicate system, all you need is one pissed-off, mentally ill person with a pressure-cooker bomb to blow the entire system sky-high. There's enough pressure in that to kill thousands of people.

[Thor.]

You could have the same mentality with a standard transit system like buses. :whistling: every form of transit is just as vulnerable.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Thor.

[Lisnpuppy]

Yes and buses are heavily regulated and buses from certain places do not get to travel to other certain places...as was stated earlier.

 

I think that whistling sound you hear is the point going over your head, Thor. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Vagrant0]

You could have the same mentality with a standard transit system like buses. :whistling: every form of transit is just as vulnerable.

 

The key difference is that with a bus, if some idiot decides to use a bomb, the death toll is relatively small and usually limited to just the people who were on that bus or within the immediate vicinity, with traffic being routed elsewhere for the few hours they need to clean up the scene. With a supersonic transportation system however, if there's a large enough explosion, not only is the one car gone, but so is the entire tube along with any other cars traversing that tube within several miles of the explosion due to:

 

1. If the tubes are a vacuum, explosive force from a large breach would be sucked into the tube pressurizing it causing a shockwave to damage cars and liquify passengers. Think bug on windshield. Hard to explain the physics here, but be thankful that a vacuum system is unlikely.

 

2. If the tubes are not a vacuum, having a large enough breach in the tube would result in the death of anyone in a car which was close enough to that breach to slow down fast enough to not be shot out of the tube at lethal speeds. As the top speed would be so high, suddenly stopping even in an emergency would be impossible. Depending on how close together cars are and how good failsafes might be, you'd still be looking at a very high death toll or injury rate, even miles away because of some cars not having their failsafes working and slamming into eachother.

 

3. In addition to everything, you would still have the structural damage to deal with, essentially bringing most of the travel through that point to a halt until sections could be repaired. If you have multiple lines clustered (as you'd pretty much need in order to service hundreds of cities) then you're looking at this problem and those above multiplied.

 

 

Even if some systems were put in place to prevent it, the ability for one person to cause that much damage, cause that much fear, and to cripple a whole system is reason enough as to why this sort of thing probably shouldn't be built.

[Vindekarr]

Plus, Thor, you're ignoring the most basic thing I've been trying to explain. I'm going to be as blunt as I possibly can be.

 

The more complex any machine is, the more problems it has in every possible respect. Simplicity is the greatest virtue any machine can have, and the best transport systems are simple. Just look at the humble Bus. Buses have not changed at all, conceptually, since they first appeared. They have become faster, larger, quieter, and better for the environment, but the core concept of a large motor vehicle with six tyres, a rear mounted engine and rows of seats is totally unchanged-they even look virtually the same.

 

It's the same with Trams. Melbourne has had Trams for ages, and while the old wooden milk-crates on wheels may have given way to sleek, silent ultra-modern machines, the basic idea of a tram-a small electric train that goes down the middle of the street-is totally unchanged. Buses and Trams benefit from being incredibly simple. This means that you simply get on one, wave your Oyster card at the slot, give the Conductor a smile, and sit down. You simply don't have to worry about it breaking down, or a fatal accident, because they're extremely reliable. They're cheap too, I have an Oyster card which I "charge" at the beginning of the year for a few quid, and so all I have to do is wave it through a reader to get a totally electronic ticket. Overall I spend less than $300 a year on train fairs, bus fairs, and trams, despite them being my primary mode of in-city transit.

 

Now, the reason they're cheap all comes down to mechanical simplicity. A Tram has electric motors, brakes, and a big thing that draws electricity, but other than that, not much else can go wrong. A bus has an engine, brakes, power steering, and hydraulics. Maintenance and upkeep define the cost of any travel service, and since buses and trams are so reliable, a trip only costs a few quid.

 

The hyper-loop? ok, so, first you've got to maintain the tunnel. Tunnels require CONSTANT maintenance. Then you've got to maintain the rails. And every single one of the compressors. And every single millimeter of cabling needs to be checked over. And did I mention that the compressors will need their own generators, and how much maintenance a single electric generator needs? I OWN a generator and the damn thing gets more TLC than my cars! Plus, railguns are the most obscenely over-complicated machine in human history. You'd need THOUSANDS if not tens of thousands of specialist techs just to look after that aspect.

 

And what about metal fatigue? Aircraft engines don't get put through anywhere NEAR the force involved in this thing, and yet we've seen a crack the size of a grain of rice tear a wing off or cause an engine explosion. I shudder to think the cost involved in simply looking after the PODS, let alone the pipe. The force involved in this would push ANY known metal beyond it's limits. Every pod would need to go through the same pre and post run checks as an airliner, otherwise you'd inevitably get a fatal accident.

 

And then the tube itself would need similar treatment. The only thing copping more raw blunt force trauma than the pods is the tube, and I can't even imagine the cost of constantly replacing the sort of ultra-high-end super-alloyed outer structure. You wouldn't just have to build it, looking after it would be a fiscal nightmare in and of itself.

 

Now, the other problem is, the more complex a device is, the more likely a break-down is. And there's no more over-complicated device currently in existance than the railgun. They're monstrously fiddly things, the gun itself is fine, they're actually blissfully simple and reliable, the problem is they need almost unimaginable amounts of electricity to launch even a tiny object, and the infrastructure to provide that electricity has to be so over-engieered that problems are inevitable.

 

On that topic, let's dicuss the shear lunacy of railguns. They're pretty simple, on paper. You take two or four metal rods, these are your "rails". These serve like a gunbarrel. You take a capacitor, which is like a battery that discharges all it's electricity at once, and a power supply to power the capacitor. The capacitor dumps a monumental, almost unimaginably vast electric discharge into the rails, and as it passes along, the magnetic induction hurls whatever magnetically reactive object was in the barrel, forwards at near light-speed. Simple, right? Well, actually they are. Railguns are extremely simple, beautiful designs. From an engineer's perspective, they're elegance incarnate.

 

The issue comes from providing a large enough power supply. Right now, the world's most powerful railgun can't launch anything bigger than an 88 millimeter tank-shell. And even launching an object that small, and with it's own power-station to juice it up, it still has to charge for THREE DAYS, to fire only once. Now, you'd need dozens if not hundred of railgun nodes of power well beyond what we currently have. Unless you're willing to build hundreds of nuclear power plants to power it, that's impossible.

 

I don't know if you're going to bother reading this Thor, and if you do you may not care. But not only does every iota of my tertiary education in this field say it can't be done, but every iota of common sense I have is vehemently agreeing with what the education is saying as well.