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transportation. They will not only be fossil fuel free but also
quiet, since most or all noise produced will be kept inside the
tube. Solar panels and windmills will be the preferred source
of energy whenever possible.
Main Operational Characteristics
of the Proposed Hyperloop System
It has been proved through simulation that hyperloop vehicles
can be built to accommodate up to 200 passengers, so they are
being designed to carry between 50 and 200 people. The largest
and most common regional airplanes, the Airbus A320 and
Boeing 737, can carry up to 185 passengers. Thus, the system
is aligned with true market needs in this respect. Also, for the
proposed range and design, the more passengers a vehicle
carries, the more efficient it becomes in terms of consumption
per seat. Nonetheless, vehicle capacity can be adjusted to specific
needs, accommodating 50, 75, 100, or 130 riders. Most likely,
the first to be deployed will carry 50 passengers, enabling
power requirements to be more easily be met and providing
enough capacity for most of the potential corridors. Considering
a single tube per direction and 16 h of daily operation, and
a tentative minimum headway at a cruise speed of around
5 km/h, 38,400 passengers per day per direction could be
accommodated, with a flow of 2,400 passengers during peak
hours. For a point-to-point network targeting distances longer
than 500 km, these figures are sufficient in most cases, and
there is still a reasonable margin for improvement.
Furthermore, one key benefit of the proposed system is
that it could complement air traffic. It has the potential to
add highly required capacity in already congested corridors.
Also, a dynamic simulator was developed to estimate
the cost in time and energy that Zeleros's concept
requires. The results are compared with planes and trains
for different routes on three continents (Europe, North
America, and Asia). Each is representative of distances
ranging from 600 to 900 km. In Figure 3, it can be seen that
the energy consumption is far closer to that of trains,
being more than two times less than that of planes. In Figure
8, the travel time matches planes at a cruise speed of
650 km/h and is far better than any rail service covering
the same distance.
Current State of Development and Next Steps
Several private companies are involved in hyperloops:
Zeleros; Hardt, in The Netherlands; Nevomo, in Poland;
Transpod, in Canda; and Virgin Hyperloop and Hyperloop
Transportation Technologies, in the United States. Thanks
to rapid growth and maglev initiatives in Asia, almost all
of the hyperloop system has been tested on a laboratory
scale. The larger development has been done by Virgin
Hyperloop. In its 500-m tube, a capsule reached 387 km/h
in 2017, using magnetic propulsion and passive maglev in
a low-pressure environment. Later, in 2020, a similar capsule
transported two people up to 173 km/h.
Although almost all the technologies have been tested,
major challenges remain in how to integrate them in an
efficient and commercially operable vehicle. The behavior
of the magnetic system at 1,000 km/h (for levitation and
propulsion) is an uncertainty, as the fastest maglev speed
to date is 603 km/h, reached on the Japanese Shinkansen
in 2015. Other issues such as cabin conditioning, emergency
evacuation protocols, and vehicle flow at stations
are unresolved. Apart from technology development,
there has been a huge step forward in terms of certification.
In the European Commission, a standardization
committee has been created, and the requirements for
this means of transportation are being developed.
Acknowledgment
We wish to acknowledge all the people involved in this
project, including those advisors, investors, partners,
and team members who believe in a better future
for everyone.
For Further Reading
H. Clayton, The Atmospheric Railways. Gloucester: Alan Sutton
Publishing, 1985.
" Hyperloop pioneers welcome a new era in high-speed
transportation with industry-first international alliance, " EIT
Climate-KIC, 2018. https://www.climate-kic.org/news/zeleroshyperloop-consortia/
(accessed May 31, 2019).
G. A. Landis, " Human exposure to vacuum, " Aerospace Web,
July 7, 2009. http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html
(accessed Feb. 5, 2016).
" Birmingham airport's old Maglev carriage to be sold, "
BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-11780663
(accessed Nov. 26, 2019).
" Hyperloop pod competition, " SpaceX. https://www
.spacex.com/hyperloop (accessed Nov. 27, 2019).
" At 574.8 km/h, the TGV, " Le Parisien. http://www.leparisien
.fr/archives/a-574-8-km-h-le-tgv-04-04-2007-2007914213.php
(accessed Nov. 27, 2019).
A. A. Pilmanis and W. J. Sears, " Physiological hazards of
flight at high altitude, " Lancet, vol. 362, no. 1, pp. 16-17, Dec.
2003. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(03)15059-3.
" The Japanese Maglev: World's fastest bullet train, " Japan
Rail Pass, Nov. 2019. https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev
-bullet-train
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
Commercial Aircraft Propulsion and Energy Systems Research:
Reducing Global Carbon Emissions. Washington, D.C.: The
National Academies Press, 2016.
Biographies
Federico Lluesma (fellrod@doctor.upv.es) is with Universitat
Politècnica de València, València, 46022, Spain, and
Zeleros, València, 46024, Spain.
Antonio Arguedas (aarguedas.paths@outlook.com) is
with Zeleros, València, 46024, Spain.
Sergio Hoyas (serhocal@upvnet.upv.es) is with Universitat
Politècnica de València, València, 46022, Spain.
Alberto Sánchez (Alberto.sanchezgimenez@gmail.com)
is with Zeleros, València, 46024, Spain.
Juan Vicén (jvicen@zeleros.com) is with Zeleros, València,
46024 Spain.
IEEE Electrification Magazine / DECEMBER 2021
73

https://www.climate-kic.org/news/zeleros-hyperloop-consortia/ https://www.climate-kic.org/news/zeleros-hyperloop-consortia/ http://www.geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham- 11780663 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-11780663 https://www.spacex.com/hyperloop https://www.spacex.com/hyperloop http://www.leparisien.fr/archives/a-574-8-km-h-le-tgv-04-04-2007-2007914213.php http://www.leparisien.fr/archives/a-574-8-km-h-le-tgv-04-04-2007-2007914213.php https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train

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