10 Km In 3 Minutes: India To Launch First Hyperloop Cargo Project At Mumbai Port, Work Starts Next Month

ETVBHARAT

India is set to launch its first Hyperloop cargo system, designed by IIT Madras, with pilot operations beginning at Mumbai Port within a year.

Transcript

00:00here we have been developing the hyperloop technology for the last six to seven years

00:06we have come to a point where we have a 400 plus meter long two meter diameter tube which is a

00:12subscale tube we have successfully demonstrated pod run inside the entire length of the tube

00:20we've also demonstrated the vacuum holding capacity of the tube and what we are currently

00:27doing is to test vacuum compatibility of the electronics as well as the levitation in a

00:34smaller section in the main campus once that is completed we will bring that pod here and

00:39demonstrate in full vacuum levitation and magnetic propulsion that would comprise the total stack of

00:47hyperloop technologies that we can demonstrate in one single place which right now looks like the

00:53longest in the world and we should be able to close this subscale demonstration project that

01:00is the current status so we are actually in talks with quite a few ports around the country where

01:07they are interested in moving large cargo like container cargo over an extent over a distance

01:13of around 10 meters 10 kilometers or so so for that actually we don't need a vacuum tube our approach

01:19is that if for us to be able to go to 20 kilometer 200 kilometer per hour it's sufficient to actually

01:25have just a linear propulsion or the magnetic propulsion for us to go to 400 kilometer per hour we can then

01:32start levitation for us to go to 600 kilometer per hour is where we need to actually also have the vacuum

01:38so when you have the vacuum then it consumes overall less power and therefore it's more economical and it can

01:45compete very well with aircraft flights for passengers so until we get to that stage passenger is actually

01:53not very viable but once we get there i think passenger transport will become very commonplace and very

02:00useful for people but in the meantime we are actually trying the cargo up to about 200 kilometer per hour with

02:06just magnetic propulsion on ground without the tube and vacuum and without even levitation we are expecting

02:13that we will actually start these cargo projects in the next one or two months and it's a one year

02:18project so by about next year end of next year we should actually have completed those yeah this tube

02:23is actually something very special we have a patent on this tube what we realized is that these tubes

02:30actually have to run kilometer on kilometer for the entire distance and that's what will actually

02:35be the most expensive part of hyperloop and so in order to bring down the cost we have actually

02:41innovated on the tube and got a patent the innovation is actually tried to is in trying to save the weight

02:47on the tube because the cost is actually on on a weight basis on a cake on a kg basis of the steel that

02:55is used in the tube is what cost us so lightweighting is actually something very natural in aerospace

03:01so for example the shell of the fuselage where which which contains the cabin where people are sitting

03:08inside an aircraft is basically patterned after exactly this kind of a technology of a frame and a skin

03:15so we have actually tried to decrease the thickness of the skin to something like six millimeter when

03:21compared to what they have used in europe to up to about 16 millimeters and we we think that we have

03:29actually done tests with two two millimeter millimeter itself and we have succeeded but just for safety

03:35and for withstanding earthquakes and so on we have actually bumped it up to six millimeter and there

03:41we have been able to save a lot of weight when compared to 16 millimeter and therefore this is

03:46actually the least expensive of the tubes so at full scale our estimate is that variously people are

03:53talking about magnet high-speed rail or metros that can cost somewhere around 27 million per kilometer

04:00dollars per kilometer we believe that we can actually do this within about 10 million dollars per kilometer so

04:07there is a cost savings of around two and a half times that we can do here so the way to maintain this

04:14we believe is to actually have sections where each of these sections will have its own large vacuum pumps

04:21and if there is a problem with any section we will isolate that section with gate valves we maintain vacuum on

04:27the other sections but relieve the vacuum and then start working on this place in this place and repair the

04:35problem and then once the problem is repaired we then evacuate this chamber and then remove the gate

04:41valves to make it compatible with the other ones the same method will also be useful for emergency

04:48handling for passengers so wherever the pod is having any problem it can actually be taken very slowly to

04:55the nearest emergency exit and that particular section can be isolated and the vacuum can be relieved so

05:01that passengers can be you know got out of the pod safely otherwise the pod will actually dock to the

05:09station and there will be no removal of the vacuum at any station so the vacuum will always continue to be

05:15there in the tube the large vacuum pumps are ones that are used for like one time evacuation but there will be

05:21small vacuum pumps that are just maintaining the vacuum at a very low power consumption so yeah we

05:26believe that for something like a chennai bangalore kind of distance of 350 kilometers uh let's say from

05:33middle of the city to middle of the city going by within about half an hour or so it should cost around

05:381500 rupees 1500 rupees to 2000 rupees is our expectation so uh we what we actually would do is to

05:45run pods each pod could actually be anywhere between about 40 to 75 seats a mini pod could be 40 and large part could be 75

05:54so depending upon whether it is a peak hour or you know lean hour we can run a large pod or a small pod

06:00but the idea here is actually the way to act the reason why we do this as pod is to manage the power

06:07consumption per pod uh but more importantly for the passenger it will actually be more of an on-demand transport

06:13so anytime anybody actually wants to come to the hyperloop station to take a pod there will be a

06:18pod that is leaving every two minutes so you don't have to actually go to the station at a particular

06:23time to catch a train and so on it can be it will be all the time so throughout the day we should

06:29actually have about a pod leaving in two minutes uh that kind of frequency it will actually be a double

06:34track always because we are going very fast there is no way we can allow for uh pods to come in the opposite

06:40direction

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