A new TU Delft Hyperloop team has joined the design competition for a futuristic tube transport system at the speed of sound.
Imagine a cross-breed between the underground and a pneumatic dispatch system such as banks and supermarkets use. What you get is the Hyperloop: a transport system that works with pressurised cabins that speed along through (nearly) vacuum tubes near the speed of sound.
That sounds like science fiction. Until you learn that Hyperloop is a project initiated by the technological visionary Elon Musk who put the Tesla electric cars on the road and who sent SpaceX’s Falcon rockets into the skies. Musk first mentioned the concept for a “fifth mode of transport” in 2012 as a “cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table”. A year later, he published a whitepaper inviting the best and brightest minds to come up with competing ideas for realising the further development.
The Delft Hyperloop team, with 33 students, is the latest asset in the TU’s renowned Dreamhall. Their mission is to build a 1:2 scale model of a passenger cabin for the Hyperloop. If they pass the next step in the competition, their capsule will be ‘launched’ next June on the 1.6-kilometre test track. The test will start with a 4-second acceleration at 2,4 g, followed by a 10-second ride and an equally brisk braking procedure.
The team has chosen for magnetic levitation to minimise drag. Once over 10 m/s, the induced magnetism lifts the cabin’s auxiliary wheels from the ground. Students Tim Houter (team captain) and Merel Toussaint (aerodynamics) argue that the team’s design will have minimal drag because of the combination of induced magnetic levitation and low air pressure in the tube.
The low pressure allows for the capsule’s blunt nose. The extended tail should help to shake off the supersonic ‘bang’ when the capsule reaches Mach 1. The full-scale version is supposed to reach 1.080 km/hour (which is close to the speed of sound).
The effect of a supersonic bang in a closed tube, and the forces it exerts on the tube and the capsule are largely unknown. Some things you’ve just got to try.
The team will present its design to the Hyperloop jury at the end of January 2016. Between then and June 2016, they’ll be busy building their prototype in the Dreamhall.
Radio (Nederlands)
Beluister Studenten Bastiaan Zwanenburg en Tim Houter bij de Nieuws BV (dinsdag 17 november 2015)
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