Hyperloops | The way to Fast and Energy Efficient Transport

Let us begin with a series of Questions !!

What is a Hyperloop? Why we need a Hyperloop? What are its Advantages?

Well the course of this article would move from "What a hyperloop is?" to knowing the principles by which it works and then moving to "Its Advantages" and finally into its achievements. 

The concept of hyperloop is pretty new. Well a the term HYPERLOOP was coined by SpaceX on 4th of April, 2017 to describe "High speed Transportation of goods in tubes". The concept of Hyperloop arises from the quest for faster, Green and reliable transport. The idea was first introduced by Elon Musk in July 2012 at an event in California, calling it the 5th mode of Transport. 

A Hyperloop consists of a tunnel which is made devoid of air using vacuum pumps to remove the losses due to air drag. Air drag and losses due friction forms a major part of the net loss. If this is removed then a lot of energy may be saved and Energy efficient transport would be possible. To get a better statistical Idea let us look at the following example.

We know the usual aerodynamic drag equation is given by:

𝐹𝑑=−𝑏𝑣2

Where 𝑏 here is just some constants combination related to the property of the fluid and the material passing through.

My question is, how do we approximate the work done and hence the loss of energy caused by drag to some objects moving in the air? The motivation behind the question is I'm rather curious how much energy is required to move a car from rest to some particular speed with air resistance.

For example, knowing that the average weight of a car is 1 ton. If we wanted to accelerate the car from rest to say 100km/h in vacuum. The KE needed is just about 400 J, which (looking at fuel efficiency page in Wiki for say petrol at 34.8 MJ/L) will only require a minuscule amount of fuel like less than a thousandth of a litre, even if we have engine that has 0.1 efficiency. On the other hand we know that fuel mileage for ordinary car is a lot higher than that. Where all of the energy is gone?

 All the above energy is lost due to various losses. Hyperloop aims at minimising these losses. Having its own atmosphere reduces the air drag and the frictional loss is reduced using the technique of magnetic levitation accompanied by electric propulsion. The Hyperloop uses an electric induction motor consisting of a rotor which rotates and a stator which is stationary. But the fact is that the Hyperloop motor is not circular but linear and the rotor is on the pod which is propelled magnetically as it moves over the stator.

Hyperloop | Origin, Principles and Working

These awesome design and modern concept of the Hyperloop brings forth many advantages:-

• A Hyperloop allows super fast transport allowing speeds of thousands of miles per hour. It is capable of converting hours of bus, train and even plane journeys to a matter of minutes.
• The is no concept of traffic as pods of a hyperloop would be regulated through computers.
• Since on atmosphere is present the air drag would be negligible and use of magnetic levitation would prevent frictional losses in the tyres. These minimal losses helps Hyperloops to reach high speed with the intake of very less Energy.
• Since it runs using Electricity, it is an absolute Green Source of Energy.
• Another added advantage is that it would not be affected by the outside weather conditions, providing fast, reliable and ever-present source of transportation.

The scope of Hyperloop

A lot has happened since the first release of Elon Musk's paper on Hyperloop. In the last decade there has been huge development in the Engineering aspects of the Hyperloop. A lot of Companies have done very well in the race to build the first Hyperloop. The Virgin Hyperloop One ranks among the best. Its biggest achievement was that it raised $300 million to build Devloop, a 500 meter long testing environment, situated in the Nevada Desert. The Virgin Hyperloop One company has conducted many successful trials and has been able to reach speeds of 240 miles per hour in spite of  the track being as small as 500 m.

    Recently it has been looking for places to where commercial Hyperloop can be build. The Hyperloop One has signed a deal with Maharashtra Govt. to build a feasible route between Mumbai and Pune. This would probably be the first Hyperloop in the World. At least a test route is being built as a part of the main route and it will hopefully be operational by 2021. About the same time Virgin Hyperloop One teamed up with Dubai's Road and Transport Authority to show off a concept design of a passenger pod.

    The Hyperloop has great potential in the near future and would give a new boost to transportation after centuries.