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| Static Electricity Demonstration in a Tube |
Enjoyed reading the Hyperloop Alpha document on the slow old train yesterday. I had a few extra thoughts about some features not yet documented.
Static Electricity
The tube pressure is like stratospherically low. About 1/1000th outside air pressure. Such a low pressure would result in a extremely hyper dry air inside the tubes, since it is also significantly lower than the vapour pressure of water at that same temperature. The pods in the hyperloop will carry us forward at sub-sonic .98 Mach speeds in a near vacuum. The electrodynamics and impact of the ultra-dry air inside the tube are not represented in the Alpha document so far. Look forward to gold plated pods which would conduct well enough to reduce the static effects transferred to the inside of the pods. Love those electric fields in the lab, but you would not want the trip to be too hair raising.
Batteries
The compressor batteries are expected to discharge over the 45 minute trip. I can see whole teams of station robots swapping out 4 tons of batteries from each pod every 30 seconds at peak hour, once they reach the station. That could be tough ! rooms full of batteries to recharge.
Communications
For people to be without their mobile phones operating for 45 mins may be a challenge. There is no mention of how communications will be maintained inside the conductive pods [see static comment] and inside the metal tubes. Presumably there may be intra - extra tube repeaters installed.
Overall Tube Cooling
With virtually no air [almost vacuum] inside the hypertubes there may be an issue with overall cooling - particularly on a really hot day. I would expect that the tube metal temperatures may get up to at least 65 Centigrade unless the 6 meter pylons have some kind of heat exchanger - heat pump to remove heat and regulate it. I would expect that heat pumps could be built in to cool the hypertubes and exchange heat below ground level. We've done this sometimes to cool control system equipment cubicles in the desert.
Interpod Headway gap controls
I would expect that there may need to be a special radio system setup which would allow the control system to have pod to pod communications which would be used to control the inter pod safety gap. As the overall pod speed increases, the headway/tailway would also increase to allow an appropriate braking distance. The dynamic control of multiple pods travelling in the tube simultaneously could be an interesting study.
Solar Panels
Forget panels ! - might be worth considering Solar paint. This would reduce the wind load and prevent people getting panels for free [a short 6 meter climb to the top]. It's new but the guys at the Newcastle University have made great progress in this just recently. [see notes]
Now that the hyperloop forum is up and running and I've joined it. Future contributions on this subject will be on that forum.
C J Smith
23 August 2013
Notes:
Hyperloop community blog : http://www.hyperloopcommunity.com/blog
Solar Paint : http://www.newcastleinnovationscience.com.au/solarpaint-unique-investment-opportunity
Photo Attrib : La Sombra/Flickr
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