Explainer: Delhi to Jaipur in half an hour, how will hyperloop technology change transport picture

Imagine that you reach Delhi to Jaipur or Delhi to Dehradun in half an hour. From Chennai to Bangalore or Kolkata from Bhubaneswar in a quarter of an hour or reach Bangalore from Mumbai in an hour and the road is not from the plane. Not even by rail, not even by road, not by water ship. It is not possible to maintain such a speed with these three paths continuously anyway, so how? The answer is hyperloop … The fifth way of public transport … AI and the world of Science and Technology on the horse of quantum computing is going to realize this dream soon. In many countries of the world, efforts are being made in the right direction to put this dream in the ground. These include India.

As an experiment, India’s first Test has been prepared as hyperloop. With the financial support of the Ministry of Railways, IIT Madras has prepared this hyperloop 422 meters long in its campus. In this hyperloop, a car can run at a speed of 700 kmph. However, this car will not be a common car. These will be absolutely different Sai Fi films like pods or capsules in which passengers will be able to travel. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav wrote on social media X that with the government and academic cooperation, a unique transport of future is being prepared. The first pod of 422 meters will prove to be important in developing this technology. The time has come when the third installment of one million dollars will be given to IIT Madras after the first two installments of ten million dollars to further develop the hyperloop project.

IIT Madras has prepared a prototype of hyperloop. It is a big mile stone in this direction. Now in this hyperloop, a test will be done to run pods at high speed. The question is how this hyperlop will work. What is the specialty in this that inside it can send pods inside it so fast from one place to another.

How does Hyperloop work?

Hyperloop is a kind of cylindrical path that is hollow inside. Like a long cylinder or you can understand that like a long large pipe that aerodynamic pods or capsules will run at a high speed. But you will say what is the need to make hyperloop for this. This work can also be done on the ground. This is the screw here. We know that when anything goes on a surface, it has to face friction. Due to this, his speed decreases. A lot of energy is also spent in friction from above. That is, the faster the car tries to run, the more friction will be reduced and energy will also be more. The answer to this problem is hyperloop. On reaching the station, when the passenger sits in the pod, it will be sealed. After this, Linear Electric Motor will turn on and the pod will start walking in the hyper loop which is a low pressure tube, which has a vacuum.

In order to reduce friction in this hyper loop, Magnetic Levitation i.e. Maglev Technology will work, which will lift it up slightly from the track as soon as the speed of the pod increases. That is, there will be no direct contact with the track. This means that there will be no friction. Not only this, when something runs, he also has to face friction from the air. The air stops its speed. Its path has also been found in hyperloop. As we told that there will be a vacuum inside the loop, that is, there will be no wind, due to this, the speed will not be reduced. This will help Pod to run very fast with minimal friction and in a few moments it will come in a stormy speed. Pod in which the passengers will be sitting, there will be complete internal ventilation in it. When Pod arrives at its destination station, Linier Motors will work to slow down. Pod will stop and the passengers will get off him.

The train’s propulsion system will work only with lectromagnets

One thing needs to be understood and explained in the hyperloop. After all, the magnetic levitation that will rise above the tracks, how does it work. Actually it happens that the electromagnets of the train push the magnets in the tracks upwards. The same as you have felt with two magnets i.e. magnets. If the opposite Dhruv i.e. North and South Pole passes, then they pull close to each other and if the same poles i.e. North-North or South-South Polls come close, then magnets push each other in the opposite direction which is called repulsive force . This will happen between pods and tracks inside the hyperloop. The electromagnets of both will push each other in the opposite direction, so that the pod will float above the tracks and will not have to face the friction. All this will be completely controlled. The propulsion system of the train will work only with electromagnets, which will keep the train pushing forward.

By the way, this use of this Maglev technology will not be the first time. With this technology, trains have been running in China, Japan, South Korea and Germany for a long time. Due to lack of friction from the track, they have a tremendous speed. But the wind has to face it. The wind reduces speed. In low pressure, there is only a solution to a vacuum hyperloop.

Fast work on converting hyperloop into reality

Until a few decades ago, those who considered a part of the science fiction movies are becoming a reality of our life with great rapidly. Amazing work is being done in the world of science and technology. Hyperloop is the example of this. The basic idea of ​​hyperloop is not new. Such was imagined in the books of Science Fiction two hundred years ago. Now in many countries of the world, scientists and engineers are working fast on converting hyperloop into reality.

Sometimes charismatic, sometimes to the extent of passion, the world’s big trillion and businessman Alan Musk made the first big attempt towards putting this idea of ​​Hyperloop on the ground in 2013. Spacex and Tesla founder Alan Musk then introduced a research paper associated with preparing a transport system in a low pressure tube. Musk said that such a system, people and goods can be delivered to San Francisco, 645 km from Los Angeles in half an hour. In 2014, Musk made a company for this Hyperloop One. He also got a funding of $ 400 million for this work and also with Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Air. Richard Branson later also became the chairman of this company and changed its name to Virgin Hyperloop. He made a lot of changes in the technology proposed by Musk. Virgin Hyperloop, based on Propulsion Technology, also scored a successful test run on the Test site of North Las Vegas in the US in 2016 and 2017. After more than 400 Test runs without passengers, it took a human trial for the first time on November 8, 2020. That is, a person was traveled in the pods inside the hyperloop. This test took place at a speed of 172 km per hour in Las Vegas, Nevada. But then in February 2022, the company abandoned the plan of Hyperloop for passengers in view of the risk and paid attention to its use to bring luggage instead. But nothing special happened again in this direction. On December 21, 2023, the company stopped its work. Many reasons are being given behind this like financial difficulties, high interest rates. The Hyperloop One Company may have stopped, but this experiment intensified the dream flight in the rest of the world with this method of transport.

Work on this technology is going on at the European Hyperloop Center in Netherlands in Europe. The Netherlands company Hardt achieved great success in this direction in September last year. Hardt announced the first successful Test run at Vendam’s center. Here in the 420 meter long hyperloop, the Test vehicle in the vacuum was completely 90 meters at a speed of 30 km per hour. During this time, keeping the test vehicle up on the track i.e. success was achieved in Levitation. Under this experiment, the target is to bring the speed in Test runs 30 to 100 kmph and then 700 kilometers per hour this year. Hardt claims that his Hyperloop will be ready for passengers by 2030.

This Netherland company Hardt is also being taken up in the development of hyperloop in India. The experiment done by Hardt in the month of September had been used in China a month ago in August 2024. The Chinese company China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) announced in August that it has succeeded in running a prototype of bullet train in two kilometers long low-Vacuum tube. Earlier in February, this company had announced that it had achieved the top speed of 620 kmph in a Low-Vacuum Tube Test run. Achieving this speed is considered a big success. It is clear that China is moving in this direction very fast. With China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, the better thing is that the Chinese government is behind it, so the problems of investors will not be revealed. Hyperloop technology is considered to be very important in the rapid movement between two large population cities.

Transport will be very fast with this technology. Due to lack of friction, energy consumption will be reduced. In the long run, this transport system will prove to be more economical. Due to the running of pods in the tube, the bad weather will not affect it. But this experiment of hyperlop looks as beautiful as it looks like challenges and risks.

To make this system, hundreds of kilometers long low vacuum tubes have to be made. A small crack or air leaking somewhere can lead to a terrible accident. As soon as the wind is leaked, it will pull inside very fast, which can cause air shock blasts. Even if there is a problem in the supply of electricity, there can be a big accident with pods running very fast.

It is also a question that what will happen if the earthquake occurs?

These are all the reasons why this technology needs to be made more and more confirmation .. Like a large scale infrastructure will have to be prepared, which will require heavy investment. High quality steel will be required to make hyperloop. These are just some basic challenges. The challenges at the level of technology are of different levels, which is going on to deal with.

The world of transport has changed very fast in the last few decades. Electrical trains have taken most of the places instead of coal -powered trains. CNG buses are gradually taking CNG buses instead of petrol-diesel buses. After this, hydrogen is also going to be used as future fuel. But technology is moving even more fast.

Until a few decades ago, the common man could not think about the car without a driver. But in this direction, technology made tremendous progress and today cars are running without drivers in many areas of the world. General Motors, Tesla, Volvo, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Nissan, Audi are not knowing how many companies are now making autonomous cars that run on smart traffic management systems.

Trains have now surpassed petrol and diesel for fuel needs. Vehicles running on electric battery have become very common. The use of these has less effect on the environment. This is nothing, now the era of drones and flying taxis is coming. We see drones in normal works, the day is not far when you will start coming from a drone taxi. Uses are also going on on the flying taxi on the same lines. Come to come with this technique will be faster … Think of the day when you leave the house and sit on the flying taxi and walk towards the destination. Whatever new technology of transportation will come in future, it is certain that it will reduce pollution.