China's Maglev Train Prototype Could Reach Speeds of 1,800 MPH

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: Gizmodo

A research team in China just successfully tested a blisteringly fast transportation concept: super-maglev, a high speed train that could theoretically hit speeds of up to 1,800 miles per hour. That's three times the speed of a passenger jet.

The concept, put forth by the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory of Southwest Jiaotong University, uses the same technique proposed for Elon Musk's Hyperloop: run the train inside a vacuum tube, removing air resistance and enabling super high speeds uninhibited by wind resistance. Research shows that, for vehicles traveling faster than 250 MPH, up to 83 percent of the energy used goes toward fighting aerodynamic resistance.

But with a (highly theoretical) top speed of 1,800 MPH, super-maglev would blow the doors off of Musk's 300 MPH trains. That's because the train inside the Evacuated Tube Transport loop only encounters one tenth of the air resistance of the outside environment.

Dr. Deng Zigang, who led the project, envisions applications beyond land-based transportation. He proposes similar vacuum tube technology could be used to launch vehicles into outer space, or enable super high speeds for military weapons.



Read more: http://gizmodo.com/chinas-maglev-train-prototype-could-reach-speeds-of-1-8-1574030943#

[kairos12]

1. Meanwhile, in our country Teahaddist government officials support money for infrastructure

improvements...never.

[Jerry442]

2. Their trains may be faster but ours explode better. NT

[Plucketeer]

4. Hell...

OUR trains can fall apart faster'n that!

[HereSince1628]

5. You think fracking is bad...imagine the structural damage from 1000's of sonic booms

per month...

And think of the CATS!

Only people who live near airports carp about noise from jet engines, these things would have many thousands of square miles of people who can't sleep at night, whose cats live in constant paranoid pscyhosis due to the booming


No thanks

[geek tragedy]

7. Sonic booms inside a vacuum? nt

[DRoseDARs]

8. *whoosh!* nt

[7962]

17. I live near a military base. My cats dont react much to a sonic boom.

maybe because they've heard them ever since they've been alive, I dont know, but when we get one, they just stop and look at me for a second and walk on.
And I wonder if there would be a sonic boom inside a tube thats a vacuum?

[Binkie The Clown]

6. When that train derails pieces of it will achieve low earth orbit.

Realistically, however, it will never be built. Not for technical reasons, but for economic reasons. China's economy is in the dump. Look at all their abandoned cities and theme parks and mega malls.

And their pollution is so bad that 90% of their underground water is undrinkable!

Oh yes, they are shining beacon of technology that we should be jealous of. ..... NOT!

[whereisjustice]

9. For sure, we don't send millions of jobs there because they have such a high standard of life

Amazing that we are told by our corporate douchebags that Americans can't compete with countries that can't deliver clean water, sewer and electricity to more than 50% of population.

If education is the problem, it's that we haven't learned how to live on $2 a day like they do in Asia.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. With TPP we'll get the opportunity to learn how

to live on $2 a day, just like the corporate overlords want. What the corporate overlords seem too abysmally ignorant to realize is that there won't be anyone left who can afford to buy their products, and they'll all go broke too.

[Thor_MN]

29. Well, it doesn't have rails, so....

It's maglev, no rails.

And it runs in a tunnel, so it would have burrow out of the tunnel, not to mention gaining over 10 times times the velocity.

[Binkie The Clown]

36. Hyperbole does not obey the laws of physics.

It's purpose is to blow your mind, or knock your socks off without doing actual physical damage to brain tissue or hosiery.

[Thor_MN]

37. Call it what you want.

I call it inaccurate. As bad as general science knowledge is in the US these days, giving people bullshit in guise of hyperbole on the topics of science is just wrong. Many people don't know when someone is talking out of their ass.

[Binkie The Clown]

39. I like beans. n/t

[Thor_MN]

40. I see.

[24601]

48. The speeds aren't anywhere near the 17,500 MPH needed for orbit. In addition to the speed, an

object heading for orbit needs to reach an altitude of slightly under 90 miles. Muzzle velocity for tank main guns firing kinetic energy penetrator rounds top out at around 1700 m/s or around 5600 f/s, a little over a mile per second. But that's still under 4000 MPH. Those rounds don't come close to traveling 90 miles.

[Binkie The Clown]

50. O.K. Sheldon. And the three stooges can't really get hit in the head with a hammer and survive.

Perhaps you've heard of exaggeration for comic effect.

[24601]

60. Penny, if you had only let us know it was really you, I'd have written slower and would have taken

care to choose smaller words.

[snooper2]

54. actually I got a round to go 93 miles once

[n2doc]

11. I hope they succeed

Maybe if it gets to the point where the rest of the developed world is embarrassing us, pride will make the USA shake off the anti-science nut jobs. We need another Sputnik moment.

[calimary]

13. That may be it, n2doc.

We have to be shamed into doing the right thing. "American Exceptionalism" anymore actually has become a label for "exceptionally stupid." Exceptionally - and WILLFULLY ignorant. At the rate this country's going, and at the rate the teabagger, anti-science mentality is dominating, we're not gonna be first in anything except for the race to the bottom.

Everybody, all together! "We're Number One! We're Number One!"

[Helen Borg]

12. Yeah, but will it be on time? :)

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. Well, they are working their way towards corporatism...

[cosmicone]

14. Key word is "theoretical"

In reality, maintaining a 16 bar vacuum across a long span will take far more energy and cost far more than every train passenger to be given a loaner Lamborghini. That is not including the LHe and LN2 required to maintain the superconducting coils. I'd speculate that it would cost about $15 billion/km -- so a San Francisco to LA train would cost 5 trillion dollars or about 75 times a regular TGV would cost. And the $15 billion doesn't even include the cost of stations.

[7962]

18. How does Musk plan to do it? His point is how much cheaper it'd be than rail.

Or is his proposal a different system? I dont understand your explanation ( i have NO backround in this type stuff), so can you expand on it a bit?
thanks

[cosmicone]

20. Simple

Superconductivity is only possible at temperatures of liquid helium (LHe) and the whole coil has to be immersed in LHe to allow it to be superconducting and thus produce strong magnetic fields with minimal electricity. The problem is that the LHe takes a lot of power to manufacture and maintain which far exceeds what a train would normally require to go from A to B. LHe sealed vessels have to be kept inside liquid nitrogen vessels (LN2) to reduce evaporative loss. This also takes energy. The vessels have to be made extremely strong so that they don't puncture and cause injury. This costs money.

Then we have a 16 bar vacuum (-16 atmospheres) which would require an incredibly strong tube or it would be crushed by the atmosphere.

Elon Musk's system uses resistive magnets which are cheaperto build and a dynamic vacuum (he sucks the air in front of the train and feeds it behind the train) and thus it is technically simpler, thus costing less money. I don't think it would cost less than traditional rail to build though.

[7962]

27. Thank you!

[Thor_MN]

30. That would be a well thought out analysis, if we were in 1985.

Superconductivity doesn't require liquid helium temperatures anymore. There are superconductors (−135 °C)
that transition far above liquid nitrogen temperature (−195.8 °C ).

Ordinary stainless steel is "extremely strong". They use it to make dewars to transport liquid nitrogen that are tossed in the backs of trucks, subject to stresses far above statically mounted vessels.

[cosmicone]

42. Yes, but

thousands of miles of ceramic material consisting of mercury, barium, calcium, copper and oxygen (HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8+δ ) {Tc=135°K} or Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) {Tc=75°K} will cost almost as much as maintaining a LHe system. Whether these materials can maintain their stoichiometry over long term use has not been determined.

Stainless steel dewars are pressurized on the inside with about 3 bars of pressure. That is quite different from a vessel which has vacuum inside of 16 bars-- i.e. in one, the pressure is on the inside, trying to blow the vessel from inside. We make such vessels successfully and cheaply -- like ordinary pressure cookers. It is astronomically more difficult to have a tube from SF to LA with adiameter of 10 feet which theh atmosphere is trying to crush from the outside at every point on its surface. One tiny weak spot and it is curtains as the air rushing inside with extreme force rips apart most of the tube.

[Thor_MN]

47. You throw around a lot of superlatives.

With little regard to reality.

Everyfrickingthing is impossible, until someone goes out and does it.

[Telcontar]

49. Evertfrickingthinng is possible, if you throw enough $ at it

That is the point he is making: it may be a technical wonder, but cost trillions.

[McCamy Taylor]

16. Just don't build it in an earthquake zone.

[George II]

19. Interesting, but not very practical in urban areas. I didn't read the article completely, but...

....what about sonic booms?

[awoke_in_2003]

21. you need air...

for sonic booms. These will be in a vacuum.

[George II]

22. True, but there's no such thing as a perfect vacuum, especially in such a large "container".

[Thor_MN]

31. "Large Container"

I'd expect that any sonic boom one might experience while in the "large container" would not rate high on the list of concerns. The first would be what the hell am doing in a vacuum tunnel without a space suit.

For someone outside the tunnel, the sound of a normal train would likely be far louder. I live about 2 miles from a switching track, I hear engineers who are in a hurry to couple cars all the time. They smack the hell out out the standing cars.

[Adrahil]

33. Sonic booms wouldn't be an issue...

Safely maintaining a really long tube in a near vacuum condition WOULD be.

[George II]

35. Yes, that too - at 1800 MPH all it would take would be a speck of dust to throw the train off course

[Thor_MN]

38. A speck of dust is going to have what effect on the mass of a train?

[Adrahil]

44. I'm not so worried about a spec of dust...

But if a section of tunnel rapidly pressurized with a train in it, or just before a train got to it, it could be disastrous.

[steve folk]

25. yeah

.

[steve folk]

23. wow

just wow

[steve folk]

24. yeah

.

[snooper2]

55. really

[steve folk]

26. well

you never kniow

[IDemo]

28. I knew vacuum tubes would come back some day

[Freelancer]

56. Good one!

I got it.

[Freelancer]

58. Well that sucks!

I can't believe no one went there. Vacuum ... sucks.

Oh well.

[Adrahil]

32. This would not be very cost efficient, it think.

Maintaining a long tube in vacuum is a huge undertaking, maintenance would very intense and expensive.

[olddots]

34. hey but we can all all buy Hemi Chargers

and assault riffles jest like in the movies .

[Locrian]

41. intersting but totally impractical

Aside from the energy for the vacuum and of course sealing etc. The G forces on even a huge turn radius would be formidable. Not to mention the extremely small margin of error would make it a safety nightmare.

[Vinca]

43. Okay - that would totally scare the shit out of me.

[Bugenhagen]

45. When I think of America's backwards, primitive train system I want to puke.

Even if they never fully make this a working thing, I am glad someone isn't content with the 19th century dogshit infrastructure and corporate strangleholds on progress.

[Kaleva]

46. At such speeds, no need to look for survivors in case of an accident.

[Brother Buzz]

51. Great idea, but totally impracticable in the US

There would be to many idiots walking around with high power rifles taking pot shots at the tube, "I swear that thing looked just like a twelve-point buck, Vern".

[Freelancer]

52. Wouldn't most of any trip consist of accelerating and decelerating?

To keep the G forces low enough so as not to damage the most fragile passengers, wouldn't such a train need to take a really long time to accelerate to anything approaching 1,800 MPH? Even if the trip where transcontinental, they would have to start decelerating midway in order to keep people from passing out or tossing their cookies before reaching their destination.

[workinclasszero]

53. Remember when America used to be in the lead

But that was all BR...

Before Rayguns, and the rise of the teahaddists.

[Blue_Tires]

57. That speed would be both impractical and unsafe

[One_Life_To_Give]

59. Sounds like Rodenberry's

Except he put it underground and I think it was Nuclear Powered?