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Hyperloop One Reveals Test Track Progress (computerworld.com.au)
Hyperloop One has released the first photographs of its "proof of concept" test track near Las Vegas, Nevada, and there's now also a couple short videos online.
Slashdot reader angry tapir quotes Computerworld:
The company revealed its progress on Tuesday at the Middle East Rail conference in Dubai, sharing pictures and footage of its Nevada development site dubbed "DevLoop." Taking Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept of a levitating pod in a low-pressure tube, Hyperloop One has developed what is so far the only full-scale, full-system Hyperloop test site...and says it plans to test the entire apparatus this year.
In addition, Investopedia reports that Hyperloop One has now also signed letter of intent agreements to investigate the feasibility of building more hyperloop systems in Finland and the Netherlands.
In addition, Investopedia reports that Hyperloop One has now also signed letter of intent agreements to investigate the feasibility of building more hyperloop systems in Finland and the Netherlands.
Thunderf00t does debunk video of hyperloop
Sure, try jumping out with a parachute at 30K feet from a jetliner running 550 knots. I did see one design for a commercial passenger jet with ejectable modules for all passengers. A ticket in something like that from NY to LA would run about 50 thousand dollars. Considering air travel is safer than any form of land travel on a passenger mile basis I guess they decided to forgo the expense.
"Thunderf00t" is a biochemist and the fact that people cite him as an expert in anything except biochemistry never ceases to amaze me.
Sorry, but inch thick steel does not peel back like a banana when you make a hole in it simply because there's a mere 1 ATM pressure differential. Nor does some supermassive shock travel like a brick wall hundreds of miles leading to instant repressurization. The behavior of rapidly progressing pressure waves is known as the shock tube problem. It's well studied physics, and with such a long length to diameter ratio and length to shock velocity ratio, "non-catastrophic" doesn't even begin to describe it. Yes, the wave travels very fast (several times faster than the speed of sound), but it does not carry a lot of force in these conditions, nor does it instantly raise the mass density to atmospheric over long distances, nor does "several times the speed of sound" equate to instant arrival a many hundreds of kilometers away. The same viscosity / wall friction limitations that apply to all tubes applies to Hyperloop.
As for the Mythbusters, DOT-111 railcars ,like the Mythbusters used, are not designed to hold a vacuum. They're not even designed to hold positive pressures; they're designed to hold unpressurized liquids. They're given a small (7 bar) requirement to meet in new condition, but that's it. There is nothing in their design that is supposed to prevent pressure-related collapse when damaged. And it still took about half a second second to collapse across such a short length (the length of a tanker car).
Nobody in their right mind would ever engineer a vacuum pipeline that can catastrophically collapse along its length. It is in no way, shape or form some sort of fundamental property of vacuum lines, and only a person who has never worked in engineering would think so.
If "Thunderf00t" (Phil Mason) says something about biochemistry, listen to him. If he starts ranting about fields that he has no understanding of, close the window.
The big brain am winning again! I am the greetist! Now I am leaving for no particular raisin!
The energy from pressurization is pressure * volume. At a 2.23m diameter (3.906 m^2 cross-sectional area), every km of tube pumped to 95% vacuum represents 376 MJ of energy. With an estimated 500 miles of tube, this represents 188 GJ, or about as much energy as 45 tons of TNT. Granted it's spread out over 500 km so is equivalent to about 82 grams of TNT per meter. That's not an insubstantial amount of energy. But I think a steel tube could be designed to withstand it.
The problem is what happens when a train car traveling 700 mph hits a section of tube damaged by a localized implosion. If a section of tube were somehow weakened, it would fail when the stresses it experienced were highest. This would probably be right when the first car of a train passed it. The weakened section fails inward, and the following train cars hit it at 700 mph.
Yes we fly 500+ mph in planes every day. But those planes don't fly a few cm from things that can suddenly pop out and strike the plane.