Students from the T.U. Delft win hyperloop challenge

[PA5COR]

http://nltimes.nl/2017/01/30/delft-students-win-elon-musks-hyperloop-competition
http://delfthyperloop.nl/#floating

A team of student's from TU Delft won the overall prize for best designed Hyperloop capsule at a competition organized by Elon Musk (http://nltimes.nl/2016/01/25/tu-delft-team-brings-hyperloop-demo-us-elon-musk-competition)'s space company SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, the university announced on Twitter.
The Hyperloop is a super fast means of transport invented by Musk himself. It consists of a Hyperloop capsule traveling through a vacuum tube, which offers very little resistance. The idea is that such a Hyperloop capsule will eventually be able to, safely and efficiently, travel at well over 1,000 kilometers per hour.
A total of 29 teams took part in the competition, after already impressing the judging panel enough with their prototypes to gain entry. Only five teams passed the safety and design tests. And eventually three teams took part in a race in a 1.2 kilometer long test tube,including that of TU Delft.

[KG4NEL]

My alma mater was fourth.

[NQ6U]

Of course, the whole hyperloop thing is probably unworkable in the real world.

[PA5COR]

Good for your alma mater ;)

That is what they now try out, if it can be made working it would even rival ( short) plane flights.

[n2ize]

Of course, the whole hyperloop thing is probably unworkable in the real world.

Not only unworkable but potentially deadly should anything fail and apparently there are many catastrophic points of failure. The following video pretty much sums up the problems with the hyperloop.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk&t=319s

[PA5COR]

What some said about the fast trains in Europe? TGV for example.

[n2ize]

What some said about the fast trains in Europe? TGV for example.

Yeah, but fast trains are do-able in a practical sense. The main problem with the hyperloop as Thunderf00t pointed out above is the massively long vacuum tunnel and finding a practical way of maintaining that vacuum plus providing adequate safety measures should the vacuum be breached. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be near the thing,let alone inside of it, if the vacuum should be breached.At present there is no practical means of doing so such that we can assure a very wide margin of safety. It's unfortunately a very significant obstacle. At present I think it would be far more practical to build up a high speed railroad. We can really use some high speed rail systems in this country.

[KG4CGC]

Take 4 magnets, a double A battery and coil up some wire.

[NQ6U]

Yeah, but fast trains are do-able in a practical sense. The main problem with the hyperloop as Thunderf00t pointed out above is the massively long vacuum tunnel and finding a practical way of maintaining that vacuum plus providing adequate safety measures should the vacuum be breached.

Yeah, the whole concept maintaining a vacuum within 500 miles of of thin-walled steel tubing running along a freeway in a country full of gun-totin' alcoholic yahoos is dicey at best.

[PA5COR]

We don't do alcoholic gun toting yahoos here ;)
Traveling over rails at 500+ Km'H was oce considered impossible as well, as were cars doing over 30 KM/H, technology changes and with that the possibilities.
Problems are there to be solved practically, or we would never have walked on the moon....;).

[n2ize]

We don't do alcoholic gun toting yahoos here ;)
Traveling over rails at 500+ Km'H was oce considered impossible as well, as were cars doing over 30 KM/H, technology changes and with that the possibilities.
Problems are there to be solved practically, or we would never have walked on the moon....;).

It doesn't matter if you don't have yahoo's with guns there, the problems with the vacuum being breached can come from dozens of other sources including thermal expansion,etc. At this point the best solution to the stresses due to thermal expansion might be to build the hyperloop underground where the temperature remains more or less constant and is far less subject to rapid expansion due to rapid heating and cooling.But then there is still a host of other problems with no easy solution which will have to be overcome. Don't get me wrong, the hyperloop is a great idea and may someday come to fruition but as it stands there are some major obstacles with no easy solutions that will have to be overcome. Basically we need to create an outer space like environment contained within a 500 mile tube and propel a turbine powered capsule through it close to the speed of sound and at the same time do it inexpensively and assure near absolute safety. The obstacles that had to be overcome to produce high speed rail service are nowhere near the obstacles that have to be overcome to produce safe, reliable, speed of sound hyperloop service. Will it ever become a reality ? Yeah, I think that eventually it might. I certainly wouldn't give up on the idea. But it's going to taken quite a bit of time, thought and work and perhaps even advanced future technologies. In the meantime and until the hyperloop is feasible I think it would be much more practical and far less expensive to build out a high speed rail service. And for the United States a modern high speed rail service would be a giant step forward.Most of our present rail service is basically the same technology that was around in the 19th century. We presently don't have anything here that matches the modern high speed rail you have in Europe.

[KG4CGC]

It doesn't matter if you don't have yahoo's with guns there, the problems with the vacuum being breached can come from dozens of other sources including thermal expansion,etc. At this point the best solution to the stresses due to thermal expansion might be to build the hyperloop underground where the temperature remains more or less constant and is far less subject to rapid expansion due to rapid heating and cooling.But then there is still a host of other problems with no easy solution which will have to be overcome. Don't get me wrong, the hyperloop is a great idea and may someday come to fruition but as it stands there are some major obstacles with no easy solutions that will have to be overcome. Basically we need to create an outer space like environment contained within a 500 mile tube and propel a turbine powered capsule through it close to the speed of sound and at the same time do it inexpensively and assure near absolute safety. The obstacles that had to be overcome to produce high speed rail service are nowhere near the obstacles that have to be overcome to produce safe, reliable, speed of sound hyperloop service. Will it ever become a reality ? Yeah, I think that eventually it might. I certainly wouldn't give up on the idea. But it's going to taken quite a bit of time, thought and work and perhaps even advanced future technologies. In the meantime and until the hyperloop is feasible I think it would be much more practical and far less expensive to build out a high speed rail service. And for the United States a modern high speed rail service would be a giant step forward.Most of our present rail service is basically the same technology that was around in the 19th century. We presently don't have anything here that matches the modern high speed rail you have in Europe.

You have to learn how to control a gravity field while in constant motion. Once we master this we will be able to start experimenting with a working warp drive for interstellar travel. Keep in mind, a galaxy class starship must be built on a space station.