Hyperloop UPV

Hyperloop UPV
Awarded for Top Design Concept Award and Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence Award
Sponsored by Altran
Location Hawthrone, California
Country Spain
Hosted by SpaceX | Elon Musk
Formerly called Hyperloop Makers UPV
Website hyperloopupv.com

Hyperloop UPV (a.k.a. Hyperloop Makers UPV) is a team of students from the Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia, Spain) with the aim of designing Hyperloop, a proposed future means of transport. With renewable energies, the vehicle will levitate inside a vacuum tube, being able to reach 1200 kph.

The concept developed by Hyperloop UPV is distinguished by the use of magnetic levitation based on attraction to the top of the tube thanks to its levitation units located at the top of the pod, instead of air-bearing systems based on repulsion to a rail located at the bottom of the tube. Moreover, its aerodynamic design allows to a compensation of inertial forces that permit a higher radius of curvature, a lower cost for the air-evacuation and up to a 30% savings in infrastructure, with respect to other proposals. This revolutionary concept of Hyperloop is powered by detachable batteries and is propelled through compression and expansion of the air with a nozzle. A turbine recovers energy from the flow allowing a more efficient journey. With all these features it is pretended to reach velocities up to 1200 kph, in a totally efficient manner, due to the use of renewable energies and prescinding from the use of fossil fuels.

The initial team in Design Weekend was composed of five students from the student community Makers UPV: Ángel Benedicto, Daniel Orient, David Pistoni, Germán Torres and Juan Vicén, together with advisor Vicente Dolz, assistant Professor at CMT- Motores Térmicos,[1] Universitat Politècnica de València. They were awarded Top Design Concept and Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence Award[2] at SpaceX's Design Weekend, the first phase of the Hyperloop Pod Competition 1 held in Texas in January 2016.

The team was expanded to more than 30 students in September 2016 in order to build a full-size prototype for SpaceX's Pod Competition,[3] and in April 2017 the team was selected by SpaceX to participate in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2, which was held in Los Angeles days 25–27 August 2017 in collaboration with Purdue University,[4][5] becoming the world's first transatlantic student collaboration in the history of the development of the Hyperloop. They got to be amongst the best 10 teams of the world in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2. Nowadays, being a team of more than 40 people and with the support of lots of institutions and enterprises, the team is designing an improved prototype with the aim of winning the Hyperloop Pod Competition 3, scheduled in summer 2018.[6]

History

The project has its origins in August, 2015, when a team of 5 students of the Makers Community of the Polytechnical University of Valencia decided to take part in a competition organized by Elon Musk, the Hyperloop Design Weekend. This decision was taken as a result of a piece of news that one of them read, in which was said that with Hyperloop, airplanes would be useless for medium-range journeys (about 600 km) and all the universities worldwide were invited to participate in this competition in order to make Hyperloop a reality. The Hyperloop Makers UPV team was created in August 2015 when Daniel Orient, aerospace engineering student, read in a piece of news that with Hyperloop, airplanes would be useless for medium-range journeys (about 600 km). When he discovered that Elon Musk was organising a contest to make Hyperloop a reality and that it was open-source, he decided to ask for help to Makers UPV, a local community of makers from Valencia, Spain. That's when Ángel Benedicto, David Pistoni, Germán Torres and Juan Vicén decided to take part on the project and build together their own Hyperloop concept.

The team was selected to take part on the contest by SpaceX, and during this time until the competition was held, in January, 2016, these five UPV students worked very hard to write the "Hyperloop Makers UPV Technical Report",[7] a scientific report that groups all the specifications and the design of its concept of Hyperloop. Once the competition arrived, thanks to the support given by the UPV, the team had the opportunity to travel to Texas and compete against the best universities of the world. Hyperloop UPV obtained Top Design Concept Award and Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence Award.[8] Time after the competition, the team gained international attention worldwide because they were the smallest team and they obtained the highest "awards-to-team size" ratio, with 2 awards for a team of 5 students plus their university advisor.[9][10][11][12] All these leads to a huge media impact, appearing on Spanish TV[13][14] and radio shows[15][16][17] besides the talks they performed through the whole Peninsula.[18][19][20]

A few months later, in September, 2016, after obtaining the support of lots of institutions and companies (ISTOBAL,[21][22][23] Nagares S.A.[24] a Spanish company focused on research, development, manufacturing and sales of electronic systems mainly for the automotive sector.,[25][26] Marca España.[27]), the team grew until being more than 30 members,[3] recruiting the most brilliant and motivated students of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

During the time passed until the next competition, this new and expanded team worked on the design and construction of the prototype that will compete in the USA next summer, in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2. Furthermore, Hyperloop UPV started a collaboration with the Purdue University[4][5] (Indiana, USA), and thanks to the help given by all the companies that decided to trust in the great potential of these students, they build the Atlantic II, a prototype resulting from the world's first transatlantic student collaboration in the history of the development of the Hyperloop. The team got to be amongst the best 10 teams of the world[28] with one of the most complete prototypes.[29]

After the competition, the team expanded until being 35 members that will work hand in hand in order to make the concept of Hyperloop a reality.[30]

In October, 2017 the team got the necessary support in order to install the Hyper-Track, a vacuum tube similar to the one used in SpaceX. Being one of the first in Europe, the Hyper-Track allows to carry out all the necessary tests to develop the technologies used in the new design of the prototype.[31][32][33]

Nowadays,[34] Hyperloop UPV works everyday in order to design a new improved prototype with the aim of presenting it in the next competition, scheduled in August, 2018.

Technology from the Hyperloop Pod Competition 1 concept

The Hyperloop UPV concept[7] is a levitating rail-free pod design. Using magnetic repulsion and air cushioning for levitation is expensive and can produce unpredictable forces. The pod is equipped with a hybrid system of permanent magnets and electromagnet units, being able to control lift, so it can hover from the top of the tube. That way, the pod doesn't need so much electricity to be lifted by itself. Propulsion is obtained through expansion of the air with a nozzle, located at the rear of the pod, achieving speeds of up to 1000 km/h. The turbine recovers energy from the flow allowing a more efficient journey. This clean tube layout is said to cut costs in up to 30% of the whole Hyperloop project (about 180m USD) and the possibility to comfortably fit more passengers.[35]

Levitation System

The Hyperloop UPV team has designed a new magnetic levitation system for the future of transportation.

There are two main levitation methods:

  1. Electromagnets: they need electrical power, like batteries, to work. But lifting the whole pod would require a lot of batteries.
  2. Permanent magnets: they can lift big loads without electricity consumption, but mass variations in the pod could make the system unstable, sticking the pod to the top of the tube.

The Hyperloop UPV team combines both levitation methods:

Permanent magnets produce the main lift force and electromagnets control the gap distance to the tube.

This way low energy consumption plus an accurate force control can be obtained.

If levitation units are located on top of the pod in radial configuration, an accurate control of the gap size can be achieved, obtaining a fully autonomous levitation system.

This rail-free levitation system has the following advantages:

  1. Compensation of inertial forces: allowing a higher curve radius of the track.
  2. Better tube sealing: reduction of leakages.
  3. Savings in tube construction: no rails nor concrete inside the tube, a clean tube layout.
  4. Enhanced scalability: possibility to increase the size for freight transportation and achieving supersonic speeds once solved the transonic limits.

The levitation system has been validated with a real model of a magnetic levitator from the Institute of Automatic Systems (ISA)[36] available at the University. Firstly, the levitation system consistent in electromagnet-magnet has been validated to be controlled in a stable behavior and after that the proposal design has been simulated with the ANSYS Maxwell software.

In addition, dynamic behavior has been studied in order to obtain the influence of Lenz's Law. The result of the studies show that Lenz's Law reduces the effectiveness of the levitation system up to 75% at 260 m/s.

This fact could be overcome by reducing the gap thickness between the tube and the pod at high speeds, increasing EM current or oversizing the levitation system.

As a conclusion, the chosen layout for the levitation systems consists in 8 rings with 5 levitation units uniformly distributed along the pod length at the upper side.

Aerodynamics and Propulsion System

The Hyperloop Makers UPV proposes a propulsion system that consists in compressing the incoming air flowing along an inner tube up to a turbine that partially recovers energy and a nozzle that expands the air at the outlet of the pod producing thrust.

In the CFD analysis, the obtained results validate that the thrust needed to achieve cruise speed and to keep it constant is more than enough.

Additionally, this system allows braking with a constant deceleration by controlling the compressor discharge valve and/or compressor operating point.

At low speeds, the propulsion system consists of a mechanical traction mechanism of retractable wheels which is more efficient than the aerodynamic propulsion at these speeds.

Nevertheless, a complementary off-pod propulsion system could be proposed in order to reduce the energetic costs due to the initial acceleration and downsize the battery requirements.

At a cruise speed of 276 m/s (roughly 1000 km/h) the pod consumption per passenger is as low as 35 kW.

Guidance, navigation and control

The guidance and navigation system has been designed with multiple and redundant sensors with different technologies in order to achieve a fault-tolerant system. An optical mark system has been chosen to locate the pod. The distances between marks has been increased up to 200 m and an absolute positioning system has been added through the analysis of camera images. The controlled variables are pod-to-tube gap distance and pod attitude.

Safety

Every system has been designed with an alternative in case of failure as this kind of transportation system entails a lack of current regulation. This safety policy allows to prevent critical situations instead of acting after the emergency. Despite that, some corrective measures based on current aviation regulations have been considered as: oxygen masks, airbags or medical kits. Despite the efforts, a severe incident would almost signify passenger damage.

Costs

Due to the current pod design, the savings in the tube construction costs are fairly superior than the increase in pod price. For that reason, it is concluded that an on-pod system approach results in an economical advantage. Experiments and tests need to be carried out in order to confirm the theoretical conclusions obtained from the design proposal.

Technology integrated in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2 Pod

Propulsion system

  1. Peak power: 62 CV
  2. Maximum speed: 200 mph
  3. Maximum acceleration: 0.5Gs in the high Power-to-weight ratio
  4. I-beam drive system

Levitation system

  1. Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.4 arrays of 19 magnets of 1 cubic inch
  2. 4000 N Maximum levitation force
  3. Safety skis (1000 N) for pitch stability.

Energy system

  1. Power: 70 kW
  2. Max. Current: 300 A/battery
  3. Max. Voltage: 71V/Battery
  4. Stored energy: 3800 Wh, 1900Wh per battery NASA certified cells
  5. Tested at ESA facilities. Vacuum compatible. High Energy density

Structural system

  1. Perforated aluminuium honeycomb
  2. High resistance carbon fiber skin
  3. Lightweight chassis

Braking system

  1. Eddy current brakes, 1G
  2. Friction brakes (emergency brakes)
  1. Master-multislave architecture using CAN bus
  2. 30+ sensors to ensure safety and redundancy
  3. "Big data" communications stream

Team

Nowadays, Hyperloop UPV team is formed by 35 members[30] plus advisors. The team has a horizontal organization it is led by a project manager, that is responsible for the management all the sub-teams, being a total of 6, each one led by its respective manager. These sub-teams are: Propulsion, Structures, Avionics, Energy, Partners & Economics and Creative. All of them work together in order to make Hyperloop a reality.

References

  1. ↑ "Members". www.cmt.upv.es. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  2. ↑ "Awards". hyperloop.tamu.edu. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  3. 1 2 "El tren bala valenciano cobra vida". Las Provincias (in Spanish). 2016-10-08. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
  4. 1 2 "Atlantic II". Noticias UPV (in Spanish). 2017-05-05. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
  5. 1 2 "Purdue Hyperloop collaborates with university in Spain to revolutionize transportation". Purdue University. 2017-07-06. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
  6. ↑ http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
  7. 1 2 "Hyperloop Makers UPV Team - Technical Report". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  8. ↑ "Awards". hyperloop.tamu.edu. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  9. ↑ "A toda velocidad". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  10. ↑ BBVA (2016-02-25). "Hyperloop: the fifth mode of transportation, capable of travelling at the speed of sound - BBVA NEWS". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  11. ↑ "NatiPer - Hyperloop: viaggiare grazie alla levitazione magnetica". natiperproteggere.it. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  12. ↑ "The future of sustainable transport is already here with the Hyperloop!! – Fundacion Comunidad Valenciana – Region Europea". www.climatekic-spain.org. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  13. ↑ Oficiorama - Programa 12, Oficiorama - RTVE.es A la Carta (in Spanish), 2016-04-30, retrieved 2016-08-11
  14. ↑ Makers UPV (2016-05-25), Hyperloop UPV - Antena 3 Noticias [05/02/2016], retrieved 2016-08-11
  15. ↑ "Ya Veremos | 21/01/2016". yaveremosm80.com. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  16. ↑ "1ª Hora | Programa La Noche de COPE | #LaNocheAPie". iVoox. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  17. ↑ "Pulso Empresarial con José Luis Pichardo - 2 de Junio de 2016 en mp3 (subido 02/06 a las 23:12:37) 59:59 - iVoox". m.ivoox.com. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  18. ↑ Martí, Anna (2016-02-05). ""Si construyes has de ir poco a poco, pero si piensas puedes ir directamente al final", entrevista al Hyperloop UPV Team". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  19. ↑ TEDx Talks (2016-05-25), Hyperloop: From Valencia to the World | Universitat Politecnica Valencia | TEDxBerkleeValencia, retrieved 2016-08-11
  20. ↑ Ciencias, Ciudad de las Artes y las. "Actividades | Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias". www.cac.es. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  21. ↑ "ISTOBAL supports young people's talent - Istobal USA". 2016-07-14. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  22. ↑ "ISTOBAL apoya a HyperloopUPV". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  23. ↑ "ISTOBAL se sube al tren del talento joven - Istobal" (in Spanish). 2016-07-14. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  24. ↑ "Nagares, S.A." www.nagares.es. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  25. ↑ "NAGARES SA apoya a HyperloopUPV". Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  26. ↑ "Grupo Nagares: El Grupo Nagares apoya al equipo Hyperloop Makers UPV para la presentación en Estados Unidos del demostrador del tren del futuro / Nagares Group supports Hyperloop Makers UPV team on their presentation about the train of the future demonstrator in the United States". gruponagares.blogspot.com.es. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  27. ↑ "Marca España | Hyperloop, el tren supersónico con diseño español". marcaespana.es. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  28. ↑ "El equipo Hyperloop de la UPV, entre los diez mejores en la POD Competition en Los Ángeles". abc. 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  29. ↑ "'Hyperloop UPV' no echa el freno". Las Provincias. 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  30. 1 2 "Valencia diseña el transporte del futuro". europapress. 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  31. ↑ "Nueva pista para probar en condiciones reales la cápsula de Hyperloop". abc. 2017-10-23. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  32. ↑ "La segunda generación del Hyperloop UPV instala una pista única en Europa". Levante-EMV. 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  33. ↑ "La UPV instala un supertubo de 12 metros para probar la cápsula Hyperloop". abc. 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  34. ↑ "El año que viene volveremos a la Hyperloop con más fuerza". Levante-EMV. 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
  35. ↑ Makers UPV (2016-01-28), Hyperloop Makers UPV Team, retrieved 2016-08-11
  36. ↑ "Dept. of Systems Engineering and Control: UPV". www.upv.es. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
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