IEEE Electrification - December 2021 - 69

step further and create Zeleros, an independent company.
Its hyperloop concept appears in Figure 2.
Key Benefits of Hyperloop
Transportation Systems
Why Now?
Although hyperloops were proposed more than a century
ago, they have become famous only during the past six
years, due to a need to develop their technologies, including
the following:
x Vacuum: Hyperloops require large vacuum chambers.
Today, the Large Hadron Collider, which began operation
in 2009, accounts for 54 km of ultrahigh vacuum
(around 10−10 mbar).
x Maglev: The first maglev train operated at the Birmingham,
U.K., airport from 1984 to 1995. The technology
is sufficiently mature to facilitate high-speed
maglevs in China and Japan.
x Control: High-frequency automation has been put to
the test in several applications, such as the reusable
Space X Falcon rocket, which is able to land vertically
after completing a mission.
x Composite and intelligent materials: These enable building
light and extremely resilient fuselages.
x Power electronics and drives: These devices are well
developed, but there is still a wide margin for
improvement in the railway sector. Progress is occurring
in the automotive industry and aviation, where
there are clear advances through projects such as the
E-Fan X from Airbus.
Apart from technology, the necessity of a new means
of transport is becoming more and more evident. Trends
show ever-lengthening travel distances, particularly where
high-speed trains and planes share or overlap markets. Air
space congestion is especially worrying. By 2050, Airbus
expects the number of flights to increase 100%. Eurocontrol,
the organization that manages the air space in
Europe, says in one of its reports, " For the future, with the
saturation of airspace resources in the long-term, the congestion
problem cannot be overcome unless the airspace
structure is reorganized. "
In addition, as 21st century systems, hyperloops would
be the greenest means of transportation: they are fully
electric and hence have zero direct emissions. Thus, they
are proposed as a solution to transportation saturation, as
they would form a complimentary transport layer that can
contribute to reducing pollution. Demand for air travel will
continue growing. Deploying hyperloops could alleviate
congestion by adding ground systems with performance
similar to that of airplanes.
Description of a Hyperloop
As described, hyperloops have several advantages. On
the one hand, they are based on levitation. Thus, highspeed
railway problems, such as wheel hunting and
expensive rail maintenance, can be resolved, and efficiency
can be improved. Apart from that, the partial
vacuum inside the tube reduces the aerodynamic drag
on a train. Also, the elimination of friction enables
these systems to be as fast as planes, with the sound
barrier as the theoretical limit (around 1,250 km/h).
Figure 2. Zeleros's hyperloop.
IEEE Electrification Magazine / DECEMBER 2021
69
IEEE Electrification - December 2021

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