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posted by martyb on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the whoooooooosh! dept.

The first tests of Elon Musk's revolutionary high-speed transport system could begin soon after Hyperloop One, one of 12 companies competing to make the idea a reality, completed its test track. The company has finished work on its 500 metre long testing tunnel, which is situated in the Nevada desert, near Las Vegas, and has a diameter of 3.3 meters. It is expected to run initial trials on the near-supersonic speed train in the first half of this year.

The development follows last month's news that Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, another competing company, has started building the first passenger capsule. The pods will be able to carry 28 to 40 passengers at a time and depart every 40 seconds, the company said. They could be ready as early as next year.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:03PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:03PM (#490921)

    In 500 meters I wonder what they can test? Certainly not near supersonic speeds, unless the pod is fired out of a rail gun or something.

    Even the half-sized (half diameter) test tube next to SpaceX is about a mile long (1600 meters) and they only expect to push the student-built pods up around 200 mph. And from what little has been published, there will be no people in this tube when evacuated (thus no life support testing).

    All this is a far cry from the real work of arranging right-of-way and then building a tube that is incredibly smooth both vertically and laterally -- and stays that way over time. Consider the g-forces if you make more than the most gentle turn at sonic speeds. The acceleration is v^2/Radius and put "G" in the denominator (in your choice of units) if you want it normalized to "g", otherwise it's ft/sec^2 or meters/sec^2

    At sonic velocity (1100 ft/sec) and ~2 mile turn radius, it looks like this:
            (1100 ft/sec)^2 / (10000 ft * 32.2 ft/sec^2) = 3.75 g

    I really don't think passengers are up for ~4 g, this is what Formula 1 drivers see in high speed turns. There is no way, for example, that one of these tubes could follow any but the straightest freeway rights-of-way that goes nearly straight across a desert.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:13PM (3 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:13PM (#490923) Journal

    In 500 meters I wonder what they can test? Certainly not near supersonic speeds, unless the pod is fired out of a rail gun or something.

    Even the half-sized (half diameter) test tube next to SpaceX is about 1600 meters long and they only expect to push the student-built pods up around 89 m/s (320 km/h). And from what little has been published, there will be no people in this tube when evacuated (thus no life support testing).

    All this is a far cry from the real work of arranging right-of-way and then building a tube that is incredibly smooth both vertically and laterally -- and stays that way over time. Consider the g-forces if you make more than the most gentle turn at sonic speeds. The acceleration is v²/radius and put "G" in the denominator (in your choice of units) if you want it normalized to "g", otherwise it's meters/sec²

    At sonic velocity 335 m/s and ~3200 meter turn radius, it looks like this:
                    (335 m/sec)² / (3048 m * 9.81 m/sec²) = 3.75 g

    I really don't think passengers are up for ~4 g, this is what Formula 1 drivers see in high speed turns. There is no way, for example, that one of these tubes could follow any but the straightest freeway rights-of-way that goes nearly straight across a desert.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:43PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:43PM (#490931)

      Thanks for the conversions. Since both of these test tubes are in USA, it seemed reasonable to user our customary units...(the ones I learned long ago in school & university)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:41PM (#490944)

        Waiting for the warp speed conversion...

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:01PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:01PM (#490962) Journal

        Well NASA uses SI units all they way since that Mars fuckup. So there's a lot of big organizations that uses that system. But most importantly it's the unit system of science. And whenever you need to make calculations in this area, SI units make things a lot easier and more reliable.

        For some calculations perhaps the Planck units is even better because measurements like current consists of individual charge carriers, ie electrons. Ie better to count electrons than "ampere". Because you will get consistent results and no "half electrons".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:42PM (#490930)

    I suppose they could slow down for corners.

    I'm kind of wondering how they control speed anyway in an evacuated tunnel like that.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:20PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:20PM (#490940)

      I believe Musk's originally released plans were for linear motors to be built into the tubes - essentially lots of sophisticated rail guns used to accelerate (or decelerate) the capsules, which then just coast along the track. With proper scheduling you don't even need significant capacitor backup, as the power being generated by slowing one capsule as it enters a curve or station can be used to accelerate another capsule that's just leaving.

      The capsules themselves only power the air cushion that they glide on, with the aid of aerodynamics to efficiently compress the near-vacuum in the tube.

      I think they also planned on electrically powered wheels just as a backup, which would normally be unused except for "taxiing" within stations, but could also be used to recover the capsule in case of vacuum loss or other problems with the tube.

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 09 2017, @02:17AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Sunday April 09 2017, @02:17AM (#491046) Journal

    The test track for a light rail project in China was only 300 m ling.

    /article.pl?sid=16/08/04/0815253 [soylentnews.org]

    However state media (via Bloomberg) called it "little more than a publicity stunt."

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-23/china-s-super-bus-exposes-dark-side-of-p2p-lending [bloomberg.com]