1200 kilometres per hour, the Hyperloop is supposed to be fast. There is a Chance to survive a crash at such a speed? Here are three Super-GAU are scenarios of what can go on the journey all wrong.
For some, the idea of traveling 1,200 kilometers per hour from one place to another is a wonderful vision of the future. The magnets in the track held Hyperloop, however, offers as much substance for all kinds of disaster scenarios.
What could happen in the worst case? How likely is it to lose during a ride on the Hyperloop life?
You will hear more in our Podcast: Spectrum: A hyperloop dream for Europe
Scenario 1: Into the Nothing sucked
We know the nightmare scenario of the only movies that play in the space: An airlock of the space station opens up and sucks the astronauts in the infinite reaches of space – where he finds nothing more than a tragic death. In theory, the passengers of the Hyper loops could suffer a similar fate.
On the International space station, an undetected small leak would be a serious emergency.
Because the tube through which the visionary transport of flits in the medium is almost void of air and therefore the conditions are similar as in space. Therefore, the Hyperloop has a lot of with a space ship together: The normal air pressure in the capsules move through a kind of vacuum. A crack or hole in the Hyperloop capsule would be just as fatal as the open airlock of the space station.
The vehicle would be in this Moment, they would drop the passengers in the absence of oxygen to the ground and suffocate. A chance of Survival, there would only be, if, within six minutes of resuscitation measures would be taken.
The capsule tears, however, while the Hyperloop with 1200 kilometers per hour through the Tunnel grid, would hit the passengers with a speed of about 300 meters per second to the ground or against the walls to bounce on. Ouch. What of the unfortunate passengers still remained, is more likely to remember einJackson-Pollock-paintings as to people.
Elon Musk, breathed an old Hyperloop concept to life
But don’t panic! Tim Vleeshouwer, head of Hyperloop development teams at the University of Technology in Delft in the Netherlands, gives the all-clear: These scenarios are quite unlikely – at least in the case of the model developed by his Team. “The walls of the passenger module will be approximately ten centimeters thick,” he says. “They are thicker than the walls of an aircraft.”
Nevertheless, even in thick walls of a crack or hole. What then? “Then can immediately be air in the vacuum tube is directed so that normal air pressure prevails,” says Vleeshouwer. In other words: no one is suffocating. However, would blow through the pressure compensation in the short term, an extremely strong Wind.
Scenario 2: The Hyperloop-A Mass Pile-Up
Nightmare number Two: What if the vehicle in front pulls the end of the Hyperloop suddenly the emergency brake and stops? Not it is inevitable that the rear-end collision?
To deal with the catastrophic scale of this idea with black Humor:
“What is the last, that’s a Hyperloop passenger through the head?”
“His Headrest.”
Since the Vision of the Delft team is that all of the 30 seconds to fly 50 passengers, two capsules per Minute, the risk of a “collision” is real. Such an incident would be for all of the 100 Involved fatal, if not immediately fatal.
But so far it has not come at all. Vleeshouwer says that the Design of his team “has very good brakes”.
Read more: Elon Musk: the Munich students win Hyperloop competition
There are a lot of Hyperloop concepts with different specifications, such as this here in Dubai
For example, if a capsule fails, “are designed the brakes so that the capsule comes behind it in 20 to 25 seconds to a standstill”.
Through we anticipate the time When I a capsule 30 seconds behind another defective capsule, and in the case of emergency, 25 seconds until complete standstill is required, then the defective capsule has five seconds to send an error message to a Server, which informs the subsequent capsules in the network.
Well, that doesn’t sound quite so reassuring. The radio network in the Tunnel should be well covered.
By the way, it must feel terrible to be in this short period of 300 meters per second slowed down to Zero. Not to mention Smartphones, Tablets, coffee cups and co., would shoot through the negative Beschelunigung through the capsule and then to the front wall or the heads of the passengers to pitch.
If a capsule of stops also needs to stop 30 seconds behind it, and behind it, behind it – it would certainly be a chain reaction.
Scenario 3: Terrorist
We come to the ultimate Hyperloop-disaster: Someone deliberately destroyed a section of track, and a Hyperloop-train moves with terrifying speed to the site of the attack.
In the Vision of the Delft team, which currently leads the European planning, should pass 50 percent of the route underground, while 50 per cent would lie about the earth – so that half of it would theoretically be a possible terrorist attack from the Outside, exposed. How can you protect the train in front of it?
Quite simply: not at all.
“The tubes are placed on columns in five to six meters height above the ground,” says Vleeshouwer. “You are not very easily accessible.”
Secondly, the researchers are planning the Hyperloop-train tracks next to the existing transport infrastructure, such as high-speed lines or highways to operate. This means that they are not visible, which in turn facilitates the Monitoring.
A tube on stilts: How to rescue forces approach in the event of an emergency, injured?
But if a part of the route would be deliberately destroyed, it would be likely to be fatal. But only for an unfortunate capsule and its 50 passengers.
The Rest of the wagons would come, when the brake system is functioning as planned, to a standstill.
And this worst possible scenario is actually worse than if it would take a conventional train?
So… should I go for a ride?
To whom of all these “What if …?”-Scenarios bad don’t worry! The Hyperloop capsules will definitely have a toilet.
But joking aside: We humans have a long Tradition, to cherish distrust of new methods of transport. Today we consider many of these as a matter of course.
Vleeshouwer reminded of how the people feared 200 years ago, in front of trains. Because at the time it was said that a speed of more than 30 kilometres per hour, could bring the human head to Burst. The Thesis is not approved.
And it was also assumed that that would produce cows in the vicinity of railway lines to browse because of the noise sour milk. Similar theories were also available for aircraft of 100 years ago. It was all nonsense.
“The people asked at the time: ‘Why do we want to travel faster, why we want to travel more?’” Vleeshouwer says. “I think the Same now applies to the Hyperloop. But he offers so many possibilities, and it would be a pity if we would not investigate the possibilities, at least.”
-
The fastest trains in the worldGerman World Record
With 406,9 kilometers per hour (km/h) was the ICE once the fastest train in the world. More than 11,000 HP were necessary, so that the ICE on the route Würzburg and Fulda reached this speed! The Whole thing is exactly 30 years. To celebrate, on 1. In may 1988, the then Federal research Minister Heinz Riesenhuber (li.) and transport Minister, Juergen Warnke.
-
The fastest trains in the worldFrance overhauled
The German rush was short-lived: two years later, a French TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) made a humanized 515 km/h and “powder” to the German record, such as France’s state railway still echoing today. The latest Version of the AGV, in 2007, reached even to 574 kilometers per hour. In General, the trains are a maximum of 320 km/h. drive In the picture is a TGV in 1981.
-
The fastest trains in the worldThe one with the nose
Also in Japan, fast trains were developed: the Shinkansen. In normal operation you drive a maximum of 320 km/h. The long nose of the new model is not, by the way, it POPs when driving through a Tunnel so loud.
-
The fastest trains in the worldChina is catching up
Also in China, you want to write records. In the meantime, make it Chinese trains are already close to the 500 mark. China’s new, self-developed Express Fuxing (“renewal”) with up to 350 kilometers per hour between Shanghai and Beijing. He needed for the 1300 kilometres of four and a half hours. In a few years 400 km/h are operating.
-
The fastest trains in the worldAnd the Germans?
Built in 1980, a test track for a Maglev train. Up to 450 kilometers an hour, the Transrapid testing reached on the 30-Kilometer-long test track in Emsland. In limbo, the miracle of German engineering was held in place by electromagnetic forces. Billions have been invested, at the end (2011) stopped, but the Federal funding.
-
The fastest trains in the worldIn the balance
In Germany, final was – in China it went on. The Transrapid Shanghai is currently the world’s fastest commercial train in operation. By the magnetic levitation technique, he achieved an operation speed of 430 km/h. The train passengers from Shanghai to the airport – a journey of 30.5 kilometers, which takes eight minutes.
-
The fastest trains in the worldA Ökobiene, not flies
Under the funny name of Ecobee, a Magentschwebebahn drives in South Korea. The train connects Incheon airport with six kilometres away Yongyu. The government had initiated the project in 2006, in order to have a track for magnetic trains with indigenous technology. The train can hold a maximum of 110 kilometres an hour.
-
The fastest trains in the worldThe Desert Express
450 kilometers between the two most Holy sites of Islam, Medina and Mecca. In the future, the pilgrimage to create the train in less than three hours. The route proved to be for the Spanish AVE-consortium as a major challenge: On the last day of the year 2017, there was the first ride, as a rule, operation should start in March. It was nothing but.
-
The fastest trains in the worldTip: 603 Km
In Japan, magnetic levitation train (Maglev) to connect from 2027 Tokyo with Nagoya. The web is floating ten centimetres above the tracks of electrically charged magnets to be driven. A journey that should take 40 minutes, instead of 90 minutes by the Shinkansen.
-
The fastest trains in the worldMore tube than train
The idea of a new high-speed transport system of Elon Musk, founder of space travel company SpaceX and the car-manufacturer Tesla: Hyperloop passengers to be in an electrically-driven capsules with Tempo 1225 km/h on a cushion of air through tubes catapulted. First test run in California and also in France, a test track for a Hyperloop built.