Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Transportation Earth Space Hardware Technology

Hyperloop One's Full-Scale Pod Reaches 192 MPH In New Nevada Track Test (techcrunch.com) 249

On July 29, 2017, Hyperloop One competed a test at its full-scale Nevada test track that travelled a high speed, running nearly the entirety of the 500 meter (1640 foot) test route. "XP-1, the company's first Hyperloop pod, reached speeds of up to 192 mph during the test, which is getting closer to the planned functional speeds of future Hyperloop installations planned for Dubai elsewhere," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The new test breaks the recorded speed record for any Hyperloop tests ever conducted, including those done by research organizations participating in SpaceX's pod design competition. It was conducted on July 29, 2017, and included a 300 meter acceleration phase, with gradual breaking to come to a stop after that point. Hyperloop One depressurized the tube for the test track down to conditions similar to those at 200,000 feet above sea level, which is part of the Earth's atmosphere where there is very little friction and resistance to the rarified air. The company says that all aspects of the system, from motors, to electronics, to the vacuum pump and magnetic levitation mechanism worked well during the test.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Hyperloop One's Full-Scale Pod Reaches 192 MPH In New Nevada Track Test

Comments Filter:
  • by John Allsup ( 987 ) <slashdot&chalisque,net> on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:03PM (#54929213) Homepage Journal

    Not content with smashing elementary subatomic particles, not content even with accelerating protons or lead ions, now they want to accelerate people, inside long evacuated tubes, to ridiculous speeds.

  • by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:07PM (#54929239)
    "New Nevada Track Test"

    I'd like to welcome our most recent member - New Nevada, which joins New England, New Jersey, New York and New Mexico in making news!
  • Vacuums suck (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:11PM (#54929285)

    They are expensive, temperamental, inefficient, and there is a reason scientists say "Nature abhors a vacuum".

    All I can say is, "I want the contract to maintain the 1,000's of miles of vacuum tube!"

    • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:25PM (#54929381) Journal

      and there is a reason scientists say "Nature abhors a vacuum".

      They do? 99.99999999999999999% of nature is hard vacuum. Just not where we want it.

      • by Kjella ( 173770 )

        They do? 99.99999999999999999% of nature is hard vacuum. Just not where we want it.

        *draws a deep breath* I'm quite happy with where it's not.

      • and there is a reason scientists say "Nature abhors a vacuum".

        They do? 99.99999999999999999% of nature is hard vacuum. Just not where we want it.

        Yet 100% of nature is not a vacuum.

      • No, no, no, that's not what it means. It just means that Nature has notoriously dirty editorial offices.
    • The well known problems with full vacuum tubes are the entire point of the Hyperloop's design, which uses low pressure (1 millibar) instead of full vacuum.

    • They're far less problematic when you're not creating a "hard" vacuum as is the case with Hyperloops.
      • They're far less problematic when you're not creating a "hard" vacuum as is the case with Hyperloops.

        A perfect vacuum is impossible on Earth anyway. Even the metal tube will give off atoms. The point is that even an imperfect but high vacuum poses a lot of difficulty.

    • One of the convenient aspects is that when the tube springs a leak, the best place to patch it from is the outside. (Provided it's not a buried tube.) And the pressure helps the patch seal.

      Which means for small leaks, there's not even any need to suspend the service whilst repairs are going on.

  • Dubai elsewhere? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:11PM (#54929287)
    I want to know where Dubai elsewhere can be found on the map.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @05:29PM (#54929409)

    with gradual breaking to come to a stop

    Goddamnit.. the word is braking.

  • High speed rail in China already goes 190-220mph. Exactly how is this better?
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The team believes they’d need an additional 2,000 meters (about 1.2 miles) of track to achieve a max theoretical speed of 700 mph for the test pod, which is what it could possible reach in real-world commercial systems.

    • those are Chinese MPH and are subject to usual exaggeration
    • It is already cheaper and safer than any HST out there.
    • Are you saying you have no familiarity with iterating towards an objective?

    • It is a test. Who cares if it is "better"? It is an experiment to see what the problems are.
      Did you ever accelerate on 500 yards to nearly 200mph and braked down to zero again? I guess you lack imagination (science knowledge) to grasp what a deed that already is.

  • Wouldn't better VR conferencing make business travel less critical and thus negate much of the need for Hyperloop?

  • It covered nearly the entirety of the 1640 foot meter test track? And hit 192 MPH?

    Let's be generous and say it traveled one third of a mile, and let's assume it accelerated linearly (it didn't) from 0 to an instantaneous peak of 192 MPH, then immediately decelerated linearly back to 0 (and stopped). That gives an average velocity of 96 MPH.

    The thing ran for less than 12.5 seconds.

  • Going nowhere fast.... Be still my beating heart.
  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday August 02, 2017 @07:07PM (#54930037)
    v1^2 - v0^2 = 2ad
    a = (v1^2 - v0^2) / 2d

    v0 = 0
    v1 = 192 MPH
    d = 300 meters

    a = (192 MPH)^2 / (2 * 300 meters) = 12.28 m/s^2
    = 1.25 g
    arctan (1.25 g / 1 g) = 51.3 degrees

    That's gonna be trippy riding inside. Since there are no windows, you only have the apparent direction of gravity (acceleration) to determine "up". It's going to feel like you're in a plane climbing up at a 51 degree angle. That is, anyone trying to stand while this is going on is going to be leaned forward at 51 degrees relative to vertical at rest. (I'll add that the earlier test to 69 MPH in 30 meters is 1.68g, giving an apparent inclination of 58 degrees.)
    • There is no apparent inclination.
      You get pushed into the back, that is all.

      • There is no apparent inclination. You get pushed into the back, that is all.

        That is apparent inclination

    • The test track is short so a huge acceleration is currently needed to reach a significant speed. The final version, if it ever exists, will probably require a smaller acceleration but for a longer time.

      Let's assume a desired speed S = 700km/h ~= 200m/s at a constant acceleration A = 0.1g = 1m/s^2 (that is a typical acceleration in a train). The acceleration time is T = S / A = 200 / 1 = 200s = 3m20s. Also the average speed during the acceleration phase is S/2 = 100m/s so the required distance is 100m/s * 2

    • That's gonna be trippy riding inside. ...., anyone trying to stand while this is going on is going to be leaned forward at 51 degrees relative to vertical at rest.

      I don't suppose the passenger version will accelerate that hard. This was to test the behaviour of the hardware at speed. Next step will be to extend the track and reach a higher speed. After that they will need to try a test track with curves. They have not yet begun to address the issue of what people can actually put up with in terms of acceleration (in all three axes) with no reference horizon. They will need some human guinea pigs for that. It did not go too well when high-speed tilting trains were

  • Can someone enlighten me with info about the throughput of this system of small high-speed capsules? A regular trains and airplanes transport large number of people at once, making them economically scalable.

  • The politics may well prove impossible.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

MS-DOS must die!

Working...