Ilon Musk, billionaire founder of PayPal, a favorite of the public and a talented entrepreneur of our time, pleases the world with Tesla Motors electric vehicles and SpaceX space flights. More recently, Musk set out to significantly reduce the time of movement on this planet, presenting the concept of using missiles for passenger traffic. But even earlier, he wanted to reduce the travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco to 35 minutes. Therefore, he proposed to build a high-speed transport system that will allow people to travel 1223 kilometers per hour: Hyperloop.
At first it seemed that the idea was absolutely fantastic. And there is. But if he succeeds, the futuristic Hyperloop will replace trains and revolutionize transport, as the locomotive did, the car and the plane. The only problem is that no one knows whether Hyperloop will work and how much its construction will actually cost. Although the development is underway and active course.
Musk says the price for the project is $ 6 billion. But many people are skeptical about these numbers. Some experts say that even a decent-sized bridge cannot be built with such money. Moreover, in California, for example, a plan to build a much slower railway system between two cities worth $ 60 billion is being developed. It was this proposal that prompted Mask to introduce Hyperloop. The California plan, as Musk wrote in a 57-page technical document published on the SpaceX website in August 2013, was too expensive "for one of the slowest trains in the world." For you to understand, this train will be able to pick up speed at 322 kilometers per hour.
Regardless of the price and complexity of creating an almost supersonic ground transportation system, Musk says that Hyperloop is something between a train and an airplane. In many ways, it's like traveling in a pool of a shotgun using technology from an air hockey game. Musk believes Hyperloop will work. But how?
Trains, airplanes, cars, ships and ... beans
In the world, Ilona Mask Hyperloop will become the “fifth mode” of transport, not counting aircraft, trains, cars and ships in the pantheon of mechanized movement. Musk wants people to travel in the beans (the same type as in the bobsleigh, only more), which will be swept along with steel through steel pipes installed on pylons or pillars designed to survive a California earthquake. These pylons, made of reinforced concrete, will be separated by every 30 meters (or so) and will be 6, 15 and 30 meters high, depending on the terrain.
What plans for the implementation of the Mask plan offer engineers? Most of them fail for a number of reasons. For example, they propose to equip Hyperloop with powerful propellers that will push beans like a pneumogram. Musk notes that although it is quite possible to make such giant propellers, it is impractical, because on a 563-kilometer segment, with such rapid movement in the air column, the resistance inside the pipe will be enormous and it will be impossible to achieve the desired speed.
Vacuum tubes with an electromagnetic suspension, similar to the one used in the movement of the maglev, are also excluded. The fact is that it will be too difficult to create an ideal vacuum in pipes, especially if thousands of beans enter and leave them daily. Moreover, aluminum pipes can crack or leak, and therefore depressurize.
“There’s just one small crack somewhere on a pipe hundreds of miles away — and the whole system stops working,” wrote Musk.
Another technical problem is that the bob is moving through a pipe with air. Musk says that if the walls of the pipe and the bean are close enough, "the capsule will behave like a syringe." In other words, the bob will push the entire air column in the system and not skip it. As a result, the bob will move very slowly, or the engineers will have to build a massive pipe.
Solution in the style of Ilona Mask
The list of problems seems endless. But Musk, an inventive innovator, brought a team of engineers from Tesla and SpaceX to find a solution. They proposed to lift two pipes (one to the north, the other to the south) and reduce the air pressure inside.
The theory is simple: jet planes fly at high altitudes through less dense air, and resistance decreases. The Mask team decided that the air pressure inside the system should be six times less than the pressure of the thin atmosphere of Mars, which will significantly reduce the resistance of the accelerated beans. In addition, placing Hyperloop along the interstate highway I-5 in the United States will reduce costs, since you will not have to buy land from people living along the route.
They also made the bean heart of the system, so that the pipe was the least technological. The plan is to design a bob with metal skis that roll, or levitate, on a cushion of air pumped through small holes in the skis. The concept is similar to a game of air hockey, except that the air accumulates due to the high-speed movement of the bean through the pipe, and heavy-duty electric compresses in the front of the bean pump air into the back. Magnets on skis paired with an electromagnetic pulse give Bob the first push familiar to you from the trains. After that, the feeling of speed will disappear.
Linear induction motors, which receive energy from magnets and conductors, will be placed at different points along the tube and will ensure stable movement of the bob. Emergency exits will also be created along the pipe. On the pipes themselves will also be placed solar panels.
See where you are going
Musk promises that the beans will be comfortable and safe. They will move on Hyperloop one at a time, serve once every 30 seconds or so, and move an average distance of 37 kilometers from each other. Passengers will be able to enter and exit at each end of the pipe and through branches along the pipe. Each passenger bob will hold 28 people, sitting 14 people in two rows, together with the luggage compartment at one end. Large containers will be able to accommodate the car. Passengers will pay $ 20 for a one-way ticket.
Having gotten rid of baggage, passengers will have to sit in chairs, wear seat belts and stick to their personal display for 35 minutes. Even in the toilet does not go - it will not. And since the cabin will be very close, traveling in this way will not work for people suffering from claustrophobia.
Will hyperloop work? Who knows. Test plots are already under construction and are being tested. Musk thinks it is possible, people believe him. Jim Powell, who was one of the creators of maglevs - trains capable of accelerating to 581 kilometers - told The Verge that Musk is right to want to put the entire system into a pipe. He says that there will be too much friction in the open system. And friction can be a problem even in a hermetically sealed Hyperloop tube.
Moreover, it’s best to line up the Hyperloop in a straight line. Powell says that if the path is too winding, the passengers will be sick.
While many agree that the technical problems of creating a Hyperloop can be solved, few are wondering about the price. $ 6 billion is too weak a price tag for a project of this size. At the same time, Musk does not want to spend his own money and hopes that others will be able to make a breakthrough for him. Maybe you try your luck?
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