Why The Hyperloop Will Fail
I can’t take it anymore. Every single day news and media outlets publish articles on how great and “revolutionary” the whole Hyperloop project is. But rest assured, it really isn’t and I’m going o prove it in this article [skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read my rant]. If anything it’s doomed to fail due to it’s flawed design. And if I didn’t know it any better I’d think that this is the real reason why Elon abandoned the project / “gave it to the world”. I read the Hyperloop alpha paper on the day it way published and it didn’t take long for me to realize that it couldn’t work in the real world (without jeopardizing other people’s lives, that is). But then again, Elon Musk is a very likable guy so I do get why people automatically assume that he can just disrupt every business that he lays his eyes on. In psychology we call this phenomenon the “Halo effect”. It basically states that if people have a positive disposition to a person or product they will pretty much develop a positive predisposition about all other aspects of the person or item in question. Since this is irrational it’s categorized as a cognitive bias. Now let’s talk some science.
Problem 1: Thermal Expansion
The real reason why I’m so worried about the Hyperloop is because it’s going to end up in a total disaster. One of the things that isn’t even being accounted for is the thermal expansion of the tube. Every engineer should cringe at the thought of the Hyperloop becoming a real thing. When metals heat up they change their volumes. In this case the linear expansion is the one that we should be concerned about since it may end up destroying the tube in the process. The only way to counteract the thermal expansion that ultimately arises from rising temperatures is by means of implementing small gaps at the right spots (like the ones that you see in bridges and on rails). But we can’t do that since a vacuum is required to transport the Hyperloop vehicle. Just to put it into perspective: this is what happens when people don’t bother to calculate and account for the linear expansion.
Problem 2: Vaccum
The vacuum chamber is really dangerous. The first test track was about 1 km long and was proudly introduced as the second largest vacuum chamber in the world. Which just for the record is true but the LHC doesn’t have to deal with thermal expansion since it’s cooled down at a precise temperature to accommodate for the superconducting magnets. Something that can’t be said about the “Hyperloop one”-track which is literally just a metal tube in a desert. If anything a desert would be the worst place for such a vacuum chamber. At daytime the extreme heat would cause the tube to expand but at the same time the tube would also contract as soon as the sun goes down. This would result in thermal stress since the tube is mounted firmly into place (there’s no wiggle-room. It’s a static design). And in the worst case scenario the thermal stress will manifest itself by means of spatial deformation. There’s a lot of energy in a vaccum under an atmosphere. And if the vaccum chamber gets damaged by lets say a dent this is what will happen (keep in mind that the big track is supposed to be 1000 km long, so the effect of the vaccum collapse will be even more severe):
Problem 3: Scale
The bigger the tube, the higher the chances of things going FUBAR. It would be easy to build a hyperloop for ants but the one that they plan on building (the “big” Californian Hyperloop) will be about 1000 km long. That leaves a lot of room for errors to occur. If even one dent can cause a vacuum collapse just imagine how hard it’d be to secure a tube of that length. All it takes is for a drunk driver to accidentally crash into one of those pillars and the party is over. For this exact reason the entire track would have to be monitored 24/7. Which ultimately segues into my next point.
Problem 4: Energy Requirements / Cost
Depressurizing the tube every single time the hyperloop vehicle reaches its destination will not just become a nuisance for the passengers. It will also require some heavy vacuum pump action that will generate insane electricity bills. Add to that the aforementioned security measures which would have to be implemented and you end up with a project that doesn’t seem very economically viable anymore. In terms of ROI this would be a very bad investment. Just to get back to the process of depressurizing the tube; in the Hyperloop competition that they did earlier this year it took them about 30 minutes to depressurize a 1 km long test tube (that didn’t even have the same dimensions as the real deal; the tube was only 1.6 meters high). The real tube will be even bigger and it will take even longer to depressurize it.
Problem 5: Deceleration
Assuming that the Hyperloop will reach the desired speed of 700–800 km/h (which I highly doubt after this years Hyperloop competition. More about this later) one should ask the question of how they’ll slow down the vehicle without also turning the passengers into pulps of Cronenberg mutants upon destination arrival.
Problem 6: Acceleration
Another thing that apparently no one seems to think about are the massive G-forces which the passengers would have to endure at those speeds. I’m pretty sure that everybody would just G-LOC if one were to take the Hyperloop. For those of you who don’t know what a G-LOC is / looks like:
Addendum:
This years Hyperloop contest seemed very promising [/sarcasm]. Just have a look at the best that the teams had to offer:
Just so you know; the thing that looks like a car and accelerates isn’t the actual pod. The red thing that rolls a couple of meters is the actual pod. The farthest they managed to push them was 50 meters and the top speed was 60mph (~90 km/h). I don’t know about you but I call that pretty disappointing. Especially after all those outrageous claims that were made.
At the end of the day I just want to know who’ll be responsible when the tube collapses and people get seriously hurt or worse. Can’t say I didn’t warn you guys.
