One of the most iconic inventors and entrepreneurs of our time is South African-born Elon Musk, the creator of PayPal and Tesla. He has made history with radical projects such as SpaceX, and is now planning a commercial shuttle to Mars. Musk is a constant inspiration to me and I’ve been following his latest innovation, the Hyperloop. According to him, if you’re not failing you’re not innovating enough.
He aims to revolutionise transport by sending passengers in pods through an intercity system of giant vacuum tubes. This is basically a mass transport system through a near-vacuum tube. Because air resistance is almost negligible, speeds of more than 1000 kmph should be possible. In Musk’s vision, pods will float frictionless through the tube, carried by an air cushion. This will allow you to get from London to Edinburgh or LA to San Francisco in under 30 minutes. Musk has likened it to the vacuum tube system in a building used to move documents from place to place. He calls it a cross between the Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table. The Hyperloop is being proposed as an alternative to short distance air travel, and will be much faster than existing rail networks and much cleaner than flight.
One of the biggest problems with anything moving is friction, both against surfaces and the environment the pod is moving through. Hyperloop proposes to move away from traditional wheels by using air bearings. This will have the pod floating on air. It is similar to the current maglev trains in Japan, where electromagnetic levitation allows superspeeds up to 500 kmph. The Hyperloop will take this to the next level by travelling through low pressure tubes that have had some of the air sucked out to lower the pressure, a job that could be done by regularly placed air pumps. So, like high altitude flying, there is less resistance against the pod moving through the tunnel, meaning it can be much more energy efficient.
For propulsion, magnetic accelerators will be situated along the length of the tube, propelling the pods forward. However, low pressure means you still have some air in the tunnels. Given the tight quarters in the tube, pressure buildup in front of the pod could be a problem. The tube needs a system to keep air from building up in this way. Musk’s design has an air compressor on the front of the pod that will move air from the front to the tail, keeping it up and preventing pressure from building up due to air displacement. So the air bearings not only float the pod, but also allow it to move through the air rather than pushing the air in front of it and dragging it along behind. The air cushion will see the air pumped from the front of the pod to the rear via suspension cushions. The tunnels envisioned are metal tubes, elevated as an overground system. Musk has suggested that solar panels running on the top of the tunnels could generate enough electricity to power the system.
Musk has not yet given a date when we can expect to see Hyperloop up and running, so far he has only announced that it will be done. But in one trial an 8,7 metre passenger pod travelled along a 500 metre test track and reached a speed of 300 kmph before safely coming to a complete stop; and in July, Musk tweeted that he has received verbal government approval to build a Hyperloop that would connect the cities of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, taking only 29 minutes to travel between New York and Washington.
I don’t know about you, but I really want a ride in one of these.
On the same theme, in this issue we have a feature on contactless motion control. Festo’s Supramotion is another fascinating technology based on superconductor technology which allows contact-free transport systems; and non-contact energy transfer is already with us. In our last issue we ran an interesting story about SEW-Eurodrive’s Movitrans system, which has been installed at Sasol Wax to power the pallet transfer trolleys that transport the wax via the exit conveyors to the pallet wrapping machines. Non-contact energy transfer enables the transfer of inductive energy through an air gap from a fixed conductor. This eliminates the need for supply cables to the device receiving the power. The benefits are no wear and tear and no messy drag chains. To catch up on this story visit www.motioncontrol.co.za/57974n
Kim Roberts
Editor
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