It's the European Year of Rail and train travel in Europe seems to be on the up. France is in the process of banning domestic flights when they can be easily covered by train, there are more international sleeper trains, and the long awaited Rail Baltica project is moving forwards. All of that might not be enough to tempt people away from making medium length journeys by plane, which remains much faster, hyperloops could change all of that. In November of 2020 two people were shooting through an airless tube at 160 km/h in the desert outside of Las Vegas. This wasn’t a ride invented by a casino or theme park; it was the first crewed ride of a hyperloop by the company Virgin Hyperloop. The ride only lasted 15 seconds, and the speeds they achieved were a far cry from the 1200 km/h they promise they will one day reach, but it represented a step forward. The hyperloop might be the future of transportation for medium-length journeys. It could outcompete high-speed rail, and at the same time operate at speeds comparable to aviation, but at a fraction of its environmental and energy costs. It’s a concept which start-ups and researchers have eagerly adopted, including several teams across Europe. Open design The idea originated with the US entrepreneur Elon Musk, associated with companies like SpaceX and Tesla. After he mentioned it several times in public, a team of SpaceX and Tesla engineers released an open concept in 2013. This initial idea then spawned a range of companies and even student teams, trying to design their own versions. Among them were several students in the Spanish city of Valencia. "We started in 2015 after Elon Musk's announcement, when we were still students" , said Juan Vicén Balaguer, co-founder and chief marketing officer of the hyperloop start-up Zeleros , which today employs more than 50 people and raised around €10 million in funding. ‘We've been working on this technology for five years, and it can be a real alternative mode of transportation.’ Yet the idea behind the hyperloop is older than Elon Musk, and it’s similar to an earlier idea called a vactrain or vacuum tube train. A comparable concept was already proposed by 19th century author Michel Verne, son of Jules, and has since then been periodically brought up by science-fiction writers and technologists. Now, however, the hyperloop seems to be getting ready for a breakthrough, and Zeleros is one of the concepts in the running. Higher-pressure tube What makes their technology unique is their approach to the tube. "Each company uses a different level of pressure," said Vicén. "Some are going for space pressure levels. Which means that the atmosphere in the tube is similar to space. It contains almost zero air." This state would allow for very fast speeds, since the train would face almost no friction. Yet it comes with a range of practical issues. It’s very difficult and expensive to achieve and maintain this level of pressure for long stretches of tube. Safety would also be an issue. if something happens to the hull of the train, passengers would be exposed to dangerous vacuum conditions. That’s why Zeleros is aiming for higher-pressure tubes. ‘It would be similar to the pressure seen in aviation,’ said Vicén. The pressure in the tubes proposed by Zeleros would extend to around 100 millibars. This, in turn, allows them to copy safety systems from aircraft, such as the oxygen masks that drop from overhead cabins. This design choice also makes their tubes cheaper to build, thereby reducing infrastructure costs. Yet it also means their trains face more air friction when they glide through the tube, which they have to compensate for in other ways. "You need to remove the air from the front of the vehicle," said Vicén. "If not, the craft would stop. Which is why we use a compressor system at the front of the vehicle. If there was zero pressure, we wouldn't need this. But it's a balance between economics and efficiency." At the front of the train is a compressor, which looks like the front of an airliner engine and which sucks in air and lets it out at the rear, providing propulsion for the craft. A so-called linear motor is also located at key parts of the track, like the start, to give the train its initial propulsion. From there it self-propels along the track, with magnets at the top of the vehicle attracting it to the top of the tube and making it levitate. This proposed craft would carry between 50 and 200 passengers, and would reach up to 1000 km/h. By comparison, the cruising speed of a short-haul passenger aircraft is about 800 km/h. Faster than air But why do we need this in the first place? Shouldn’t we just invest more in our regular, high-speed trains? It’s more complicated than that, says Professor María Luisa Martínez Muneta from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain, where she coordinates the HYPERNEX research project. HYPERNEX connects hyperloop start-ups, like Zeleros, with universities, railway companies and regulators, in order to accelerate the technology’s development in Europe. "Hyperloops face today's greatest transportation demands: reduction of travel time and of environmental impact," said Prof. Martínez Muneta. Because of its limited speed – generally around 300-350 km/h – high-speed rail quickly becomes a bad choice for longer range travel if you want to get somewhere in a hurry. This gap is filled by short and medium-distance air travel, but aircraft emit a high volume of emissions compared to trains and are not always convenient, as airports can be located away from city centres. A hyperloop could solve the problem. ‘This mode of transport is focused on covering routes between 400 and 1500 kilometres,’ said Prof. Martínez Muneta. In this way a hyperloop would replace most shorter aeroplane travel, with much less of an environmental impact. "The hyperloop produces zero direct emissions as it is 100% electrical, while achieving higher speeds and therefore shorter travel times," she said. <img loading="lazy" src="https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/hyperloopgreyb-983.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-2199" width="850" height="NaN" title="With a speed of 1000 km/h, the hyperloop could be a greener and faster alternative to air travel. Image credit - Horizon" srcset="https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/hyperloopgreyb-983.jpg 983w, https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/hyperloopgreyb-983-300x230.jpg 300w, https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/hyperloopgreyb-983-768x590.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 983px) 100vw, 983px" /> Labs and regulation Bringing this vision into reality will likely take a decade. Vicén from Zeleros predicts that the first commercial passenger routes will come online around 2030, with hyperloops focused on cargo arriving a few years earlier, around 2025-2027. One key issue in this timeframe is regulation. "The European Union is the first region that has a committee that promotes regulation and standardisation of hyperloops," said Vicén, referring to the 2020 founding of a joint technical committee on hyperloops by the European Committee for Standardization and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. According to Zeleros, this is an important step if hyperloops want to become commercially viable. These craft would operate at hitherto unseen speeds, with new safety characteristics like airless tubes. This would in turn require new regulations and standardisations, for example on what to do if the capsule depressurised. The technology also remains somewhat untested, although real-world experiments are happening more often. Vicén mentions how they have already tested their technology in computer simulations, where they can model things like aerodynamic conditions and electromagnetic dynamics. They also use so-called physical demonstrators or prototypes that test in laboratory conditions how magnetism is affected by high speeds, for example. Nevertheless, they are aching to move from the lab to the field. Right now, they are planning to build a 3-km test track at a still-to-be-determined location in Spain, where by 2023 they hope to demonstrate their technology, and they are working with the Port of Valencia to study the use of hyperloops in transporting freight. Hyperloops might still be a few years out, but we’ll likely see more of them in the future. This story was originally published on Horizon: the EU Research & Innovation magazine | European Commission .

Is this the future of super fast and sustainable European travel?

Julie Brooks-Girskiene

Vilnius - Paris in about 3 hours?
Yes please!

🍷 🥖 🍷 🧀 🍷

Piri

Actually you would be surprised how great cheeses are made in Lithuania as well! And wines! The real gapes wine and craft Lithuanian from different berries! 🙂

Fille Verte

Julie Brooks-Girskiene

Me also!

Julie Brooks-Girskiene

Piri Actually you would be surprised how great cheeses are made in Lithuania as well!

and I am very excited about trying them all out! 🤤 😁

It isn't going to change my romantic vision of Paris though.

Stasys-Girskis

I'm really interested to see if it happens, who and where will be the first place to get a usable hyperloop into production for passengers and cargo.

The idea is so old by now, but had dropped off the radar until Musk came along and made it exciting and new again, but even that was a little while ago now and there is lots of investment and talks of test tracks, etc. but we still seem a long way off of a production version.

John

Stasys-Girskis I'm really interested to see if it happens

I think it's definitely going to happen at some point soonish.

Maglev trains have been around for a while and though they are only in use in a few countries in Asia right now, they are fast and efficient.

Sticking it in a pressurised tube seems to not be a huge problem.

I think part of the issue is going to be the cost of building it over longer distances, which is going to be a lot more than traditional high speed rail.

Clementine

John

Do you know as well about the Aérotrain idea that they made in France in the 1970s?

It was with a cusion filled of air underneath to float on instead of using the magnets. It broke speed records and cost much less to build the tracks, I don't know why it was never used, must have had some problems.

John

Clementine No, I didn't know anything about this project, it looks really interesting though, and I'm curious what the reason that it never succeeded was. I'm going to take a deeper look a bit later 🙂

Clementine

John

One of the problems was the noise, it was very loud.

John

Clementine One of the problems was the noise, it was very loud.

Looking at a picture of it that would make sense, it looks LOUD!

A new version using electric power could be almost silent though, and would be a much cheaper alternative to MAGLEV trains I think.

All of these things, hyperloops, hover, MAGLEV, etc. have one problem in common, which is that they need new tracks (or tubes) wherever they go instead of using the existing railway lines, so traditional high speed trains are always going to e an easier option.

Clementine

John All of these things, hyperloops, hover, MAGLEV, etc. have one problem in common, which is that they need new tracks

It was the other problem with the aérotrain, along came the TGV and it was cheaper and easier to fit to the rail system that was already here.

Ash

It would be very interesting to see something like this become mainstream and a new realistic option for travel within Europe. I wonder how long it will take for it to become a reality?

I am Ashlynn

Ash I wonder how long it will take for it to become a reality?

No idea, but it would be amazing if it does. The company are saying they expect passenger routes in 2030 but it doesn't say how long they are going to be, that might just be something short and not across Europe.

John

I think it just needs one successful working line of whatever length, and carrying either goods or passengers, to work as a real proof of concept. Then I think that they will spread really quite quickly.

The sections of tube will be pre-fabricated in factories, which probably makes them a lot quicker to install anywhere than traditional train tracks are. even though they are more complicated.

Clementine

John I think it just needs one successful working line of whatever length, and carrying either goods or passengers, to work as a real proof of concept. Then I think that they will spread really quite quickly.

I think that you are correct about this. If someone builds a large scale working line and it is successful then all other companies will jump on to the technology as well.

John

Clementine Let's hope so!

Ash

Hopefully, the real thing will be a lot better than what Elon Musk promised Las Vegas residents. Musk made it sound like a revolutionary project and it ended up just being a tunnel for cars.

John

Ash Musk made it sound like a revolutionary project and it ended up just being a tunnel for cars.

I didn't know about that so just Googled it, and yep, very strange.

They are actually now caling this just a 'Loop' without the hyper part, but it's actually a tunnel underneath the Las Vegas conference centre with 62 Teslas driving around it, so that people can get around the conference centre. At the moment the cars have drivers but the plan is for them to be autonomous. They also plan to extend the 'loop' around more of the city, and to build a new one under LA airport.

Really not the most exciting project out there, especially when Musk was the one who kicked off all of the renewed interest in and hype about Hyperloops a few years back.

Hopefully it's just a test of their tunnelling abilities before they build something more revolutionary?

Vilte

I do like the idea of a superfast train that can cross countries and continents but if I'm honest I am quite nervous about travelling on something that is flying very quickly through a tube with no space around it.

John

Vilte I am quite nervous about travelling on something that is flying very quickly through a tube with no space around it.

I don't think it's any more scary than flying very quickly in a tube with wings with huge amounts of empty space below you to fall through.

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