A team of students from the Technical University of Munich in Germany (the WARR team) managed to win the first place in the POD Competititon Weekend II in California organized by Space X, the American company directed by Elon Musk – founder in addition to Tesla and Neuralink -, in order to accelerate – never better said – the development of Hyperloop, which aims to be the means of transport of the future. The students managed to get their capsule to reach a speed of 324 kilometers per hour.
And it is that Musk intends to revolutionize the concept of transport with his Hyperloop, a network of underground vacuum tubes through which transport capsules could approach the speed of sound and travel great distances in a short time.
Despite the fact that it is a scale capsule, since it weighs 80 kilos and has a 50kW motor, this project has shown only the tip of the iceberg of this means of transport.
Record speeds
A total of 25 university teams presented their projects. The WARR team capsule or ‘pod’ was a complete redesign of the first structure that also won the previous competition. The new capsule is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic, weighs 80 kilograms and can accelerate from zero to 350 kilometers per hour in just 12 seconds.
This is a prototype, as SpaceX’s test tube is barely 1.8 meters in diameter, but Musk envisions tunnels that can accommodate 3,100 kg capsules to hold 28 people each.
According to Musk’s project, Hyperloop would provide fast transport between cities less than 1,500 kilometers apart, being able to cover San Francisco-Los Angeles, or Munich-Berlin in about 30 minutes, which would require speeds of around 1,220 km / h and would rival commercial airplanes.
The capsule, which managed to brake in just 5 seconds in the test tube after reaching 324 kilometers per hour, carries an electric motor and lithium-polymer batteries. Pneumatic friction brakes provide spectacular stopping power and stabilizers dampen vibrations at high speeds. In Musk’s plans, the systems will rescue the necessary energy thanks to solar panels placed above the tunnels.
And security?
Physicist James Powell (maglev superconductivity) made it clear that safety is a tricky subject, as’ a slight kink in the tunnels – perhaps caused by one of the frequent earthquakes – could ruin the system. The air compressor that levitates the traveling capsules and the equipment that maintains the low air pressure in the tunnels would have to be fail-safe, as a loss of air pressure or vacuum would mean an immediate accident. ‘
At the moment, Hyperloop prototypes have already been built in Nevada and California, and large-scale models have been proposed to connect New York and Washington DC, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as Paris and Amsterdam, in the coming years.
It would even be possible to use hyperloop technology underwater , which means that travel between continents could also be possible.
