Ever since Elon Musk uttered the words Hyperloop in the middle of last year the tech world has been abuzz with speculation as to what it might actually be. Whilst it was known to be some kind of tube based transportation system the amount of specifics given out were incredibly slim which, of course, led to an incredible amount of hype over it. If anyone else had said something like this it would be easy to dismiss them but Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla, seems to have a knack for bringing seemingly crazy ideas to life. After a year of anticipation, teasing and rampant speculation Musk finally released the first iteration of his Hyperloop design and it’s quite impressive.
So it seems that the best speculators out there have got the design mostly right, it’s a low pressure tube system that could conceivably work both above and under ground and utilizes linear accelerators (I.E. railguns) to get them up to the required speed. The really interesting part of it however is the pod design as they’re what makes the whole system viable. You see in an a column of air like that contained within a hyperloop you’ll eventually end up pushing the entire column of air in front of you, not so great if you want to achieve high speeds. Hyperloop overcomes this by mounting an intake at the front that drives a compressor, effectively shunting all that air out of the way. At the same time the air being taken in is used to power the air bearings at the bottom of the craft.Additionally the pods get reboosted every 70 miles by linear actuators, reducing the power capacity required to power the compressors during travel.
What is quite impressive is the rather low power requirements for the passenger only version of the capsule needing only 100KW to keep it trucking along. That’s comparable to a typical 2 door hatchback engine which, as anyone who’s driven in one can attest to, struggles under the weight of 4+ passengers and cargo. However the combination of a low pressure environment, leading face intake and air bearings seems to be enough to reduce the total power requirements for staying at high subsonic levels dramatically. The variant with a vehicle compartment seems to up the power requirements dramatically however, requiring some 285KW to accomplish the same task.
The Hyperloop design also includes a whole bunch of other little innovations that make it quite appealing. Whilst it might be able to be done underground I can imagine doing so would be rather costly as digging tunnels is never cheap. However the above ground design looks like it could accomplish the same goal without requiring massive amounts of construction, even less than that of your typical highway. This is due to its monorail like construction utilizing pillars to elevate it above the ground. Such a system could then run along side established highways and any detours easily accommodated. The top surface of it could then have solar panels mounted on it providing the majority of the energy required to power the system making Hyperloop a very environmentally friendly transportation system.
Of course it’s still very much a theoretical system, albeit a thoroughly thought out it. Whilst I doubt it’ll end up replacing the high speed train link that Musk wants it to (even though he claims it would be cheaper and faster) once there’s a demonstration link up I can see people taking it very seriously. Heck we’ve been talking about high speed rail in Australia for decades and it’s always been killed because of the cost. Hyperloop could be the solution to that and we could finally get that MEL-CBR-SYD-BNE link everyone’s been wanting and not have the project go down in flames long before ground gets broken.
And yes I want that for almost entirely selfish reasons, flying to Sydney is almost not worth the effort 😉
