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SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

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Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#51

Post by abduhl »

gknoy wrote: post #37
kiba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk doesn't have the time to learn civil engineering, property development, let alone the politics surrounding it.

I am pretty sure you were joking, but just in case ... Elon already sat down and decided to learn enough rocket science to found SpaceX, and enough engineering to found Tesla. He's learned more in his "spare time" than most of us have learned at university, and then has gone on to apply the lever of business to it. If Elon felt that it were necessary to get his pet project done, I believe he'd make time to master civ…

Civil engineering is fairly rigid and defined by applicable building codes. There isn't any real room to innovate in the industry, at least in the public sector. "Mastering" civil engineering just entails becoming familiar with the code and then it becomes a game of politics and liability.

More likely, he would just hire a civil engineering firm. Laws throughout the country are such that you can't really buy your way into the industry the same way he has with Tesla and SpaceX. Practicing civil engineering requires licensure everywhere in the USA.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#52

Post by imglorp »

I wonder what they will do about claustrophobia?

> The capsule itself would need to be small—4.43ft (1.35m) wide and only 3.61ft (1.10m) high. No standing room

No windows, pod inside a metal tube, seats reclined with minimal head room. There's no rational reason to panic in that position, but many people will not be comfortable. Video displays might help, but only to a point.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#53

Post by abduhl »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
krschultz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're off by an order of magnitude on the cost of a TBM.

"The machine is a remarkable and unique piece of equipment. Purpose-built for Crossrail by German firm Herrenknecht – one of a handful of TBM manufacturers in the world – it cost around £10m ($15m), weighs close to 1,000 tonnes, has an external diameter of 7.1 metres (23ft) and from cutting-face-to-end stretches 150m (500ft)." http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150602-crossrail-the-monst...

TBMs are typically built specifically for a job and its ground conditions. Depending on the type of ground, the machine can be a different type of machine that uses different tooling. This will ultimately drive TBM cost. It is possible to reuse machines but this is, again, dependent on geology.

Anyways, the cost of a TBM is generally not the most expensive part of a tunneling operation.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#54

Post by btilly »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #46
btilly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want to do that for reasons that Elon understands well. Part of Elon's design for the pylons allows the track to remain stable even when the pylons are moved by an earthquake. Which is kind of important with pods moving around Mach 1. Doing the same thing with a tunnel requires you to have cut a large enough hole to shift the tube inside of. Which is a massively harder piece of engineering.

Interested. TBMs are designed to drill through the earth, and then to wrap the tunnel walls with concrete blocks that are rated to last over 100 years. I'm curious if a TBM could cut through the earth and build hyperloop infrastructure behind it as well. As with everything, there are tradeoffs. Building above ground means land use issues, and the tunnel needs to be so small you can't stand in the hyperloop pods. Buil…

The answer is an emphatic no. Concrete can do many things, but it will not hold back a slip fault. Concrete roads, bridges, etc will buckle and break in the slip zone no matter what they are rated for.

Take the 1906 earthquake as an example. As http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/earthq3/move.html says, the horizontal slip was 21 feet at one point. Something like the Hyperloop has to be designed with the expectation of facing a similar event. Concrete is simply not strong enough to hold back a wall of dirt trying to move 21 feet.

Or for more recent history https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/landers-and-big-bear-califo... where the slip was 18 feet horizontally and 6 feet vertically. And that one demonstrates that it isn't enough to build something special for every slip zone you know about. Because in a real earthquake you are likely to discover slip zones that nobody noticed.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#55

Post by cloudwalking »

imglorp wrote: post #52

I wonder what they will do about claustrophobia? > The capsule itself would need to be small—4.43ft (1.35m) wide and only 3.61ft (1.10m) high. No standing room No windows, pod inside a metal tube, seats reclined with minimal head room. There's no rational reason to panic in that position, but many people will not be comfortable. Video displays might help, but only to a point.

VR goggles.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#56

Post by toomuchtodo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #48
TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's reasonable to expect at this point that there would be quite a lot of people willing to help Musk battle various leeches and vultures.

And a quite a lot of people presenting themselves that way will be various leeches and vultures.

How do we differentiate them then?

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#57

Post by camenk »

marbogast40 wrote: post #32

Wait But Why - Tim Urban's take: http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/hyperloop.html

Thanks for the article. I'm really hopeful that this competition will bring out something on the table (maybe a prototype).

It would be really nice to be able to travel between nearby cities in the US without spending hours driving / flying. Flying itself is not really bad if it's not because of the time you need to waste until you actually fly.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#58

Post by guynamedloren »

Any engineers or mechanically inclined folks around LA interested in assembling a team? Let's chat.

About me: full stack software engineer with a degree in Systems Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I work on classic cars and build shit with my hands when I'm not coding. I'm into efficiency, and I loooove the idea of building a better, faster cheaper CA high-speed railway.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#59

Post by capkutay »

imglorp wrote: post #52

I wonder what they will do about claustrophobia? > The capsule itself would need to be small—4.43ft (1.35m) wide and only 3.61ft (1.10m) high. No standing room No windows, pod inside a metal tube, seats reclined with minimal head room. There's no rational reason to panic in that position, but many people will not be comfortable. Video displays might help, but only to a point.

Innovation like this requires some getting used to from consumers. I'm sure people thought fear of heights would be a problem for commercial airlines when they started up. Early adopters have to be fearless and then it will become mainstream once everyone perceives it as safe and normal.

Re: SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition

#60

Post by toomuchtodo »

btilly wrote: post #54
toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested. TBMs are designed to drill through the earth, and then to wrap the tunnel walls with concrete blocks that are rated to last over 100 years. I'm curious if a TBM could cut through the earth and build hyperloop infrastructure behind it as well. As with everything, there are tradeoffs. Building above ground means land use issues, and the tunnel needs to be so small you can't stand in the hyperloop pods. Buil…

The answer is an emphatic no. Concrete can do many things, but it will not hold back a slip fault. Concrete roads, bridges, etc will buckle and break in the slip zone no matter what they are rated for. Take the 1906 earthquake as an example. As http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/earthq3/move.html says, the horizontal slip was 21 feet at one point. Something like the Hyperloop has to be designed with the expectation of facing a…

Thank you for the info!
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