Last July the United States Department of Transportation outlined some rules for the construction of the Hyperloop, the magnetic levitation train originally devised by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2012. The rules are the first to mention the Hyperloop and even if they are rather generic – they were mainly used to frame the projects and equate them to other infrastructures of public interest – they were welcomed as a positive sign by the companies that have been working on the project for years. In the international newspapers, therefore, we have returned to talk about Hyperloop with new enthusiasm: above all we ask ourselves what are the times of realization and when we will be able to make the first trips.
Since Musk proposed the idea, several companies have begun to work on the construction of a means of transport with magnetic levitation, that is, which uses the electromagnetic force to “float”, which moves inside pipes at very low pressure, in order to minimize even friction with air. The main ones are Virgin Hyperloop One, a company founded by the British billionaire Richard Branson, former founder of the Virgin group, the US start-up Hyperloop TT (Transportation Technology), the Canadian company TransPod and Hardt Hyperloop, which is based in the Netherlands. Over the years, the various companies have carried out various tests all over the world, from the Dubai desert to huge warehouses in Europe, but above all encountering two obstacles: the permits to build the necessary infrastructures and the technological problems related to the fact that the Hyperloop should travel to a speed of one thousand kilometers per hour, inside an almost completely empty tube.
The Economist told about the Virgin Hyperloop One tests. In the last three years he has made more than 400 in his experimentation center in Las Vegas using a 500-meter-long tube: they managed to travel the prototype – a kind of capsule – from zero to about 380 kilometers per hour, for then get it back to zero. Attempting a higher speed is impossible due to the length of the tube, so Virgin Hyperloop One executives are attempting to find an area to build a 15-kilometer tube and test more accurately, at a higher speed.
The requirements are that the ground be flat and possibly have large deserted spaces: the Hyperloop, in fact, to travel at maximum speed must necessarily follow a straight and flat line. If it were to make turns, the Hyperloop would be forced to decrease the speed considerably to avoid exerting too much force on the passengers, causing them serious physical problems such as strokes or fainting.
“We would like the journey to go as smoothly as possible,” said Diane Zhou, Head of Project Strategy at Virgin Hyperloop, speaking to Spectrum News. «Basically, it will have to be like catching a train: you enter the capsule which gradually accelerates until it reaches maximum speed, but you do not notice it happening precisely because it is gradual. Then, once you are at your maximum, it will feel like you are traveling normally “.
However, building Hyperloop train tracks without curves means traversing numerous private properties, and obtaining the necessary permits is complicated. One solution to this problem would be to build the route near old disused railway tracks, where they exist, or near highways, on state-owned land. Hyperloop also seems for now a feasible solution only for journeys between distant cities, because the acceleration and braking times would make it useless to use it on too short distances.
The timing of the first Hyperloops is still uncertain (we are talking about decades) but one of the most extensive and started projects is that of Hyperloop TT (Transportation Technology) in the United States. The company has already done a feasibility study to build a line in the Great Lakes area, in the Midwest, passing it through several states: Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Hyperloop TT intends a trip from Chicago to Pittsburgh (about 750 kilometers) should take 45 minutes.
There is also a lot of talk about two other projects that are well under way: the one in the United Arab Emirates, also of Hyperloop TT, a short 5-kilometer stretch that the company would like to deliver in time for the Abu Dhabi EXPO (October 2021); and that of Virgin Hyperloop One in India, which is still in its initial stages and is expected to connect Mumbai to Pune (about 150 kilometers).
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