19-04-2012, 12:24 PM
Feasibility and Economic Aspects of Vactrains
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Introduction
Have you ever been on an 8 hour flight from NY to London, and dreamt how much easier
life would have been if the travel time was only an hour? Did you ever dream of the west
and the east coast being just 15 minutes away? The Vacuum train is a fascinating
proposal that would make these dreams a distinct possibility by its ability to attain speeds
around 5000 km/hr. In the larger context, the Vacuum train might be the next biggest step
in the transportation industry after the invention of the aircraft. The Vactrain caters
specifically to a set of clients for whom time is of paramount importance. A
transportation system of this kind might have multiple advantages on economy and
society.
The Vacuum train uses the current maglev technology and takes it to the next level by
implementing it in an evacuated tunnel. The costs for such a project are enormous and
hence the economics behind the project are extremely critical. In this report, our main
focus besides explaining the technology behind the maglev was to look at the economic
feasibility and safety aspects. We looked at economic issues such as the total construction
costs and potential fare pricing of the Vactrain. We also considered safety issues such as
the effects of high speed travel on the human body.
We researched and analyzed a lot of articles, data and performed case studies to draw
conclusions on the feasibility of the Vactrain. In the initial part of the report, we
explained the working of each of the subsystems; the Maglev and the evacuated tunnels,
in great detail and looked at the different variations of the technologies. We assessed the
effects that high-speed travel might have on the human body. Also, we estimated the
tunneling costs by performing an in-depth analysis using the costs of the raw materials.
Furthermore, we came up with fare prices that might be successful in recovering the
initial costs without risking over-pricing. We performed case studies on LIGO, Concorde
and the Swissmetro as they were highly relevant to our analysis of the Vactrain.
The Vactrain project has not come a long way from the proposal stage. There was a lot of
research done on the technical aspects of the various subsystems within a Vactrain
earlier. However, there seemed to be gap in the research done so far on the economic and
safety issues. Our report was an attempt to fill some of the gaps in these key research
areas. In the first chapter, we start by discussing in great detail the technology of the
Vactrain. In the following chapter, we outline the effects of high speed on the human
body. The subsequent sections represent our analysis on the economic issues, namely the
chapters on Vactrain costs and Vactrain pricing. The discussion in the final chapters was
on the plausible effects of the Vactrain on the transportation and a study on the
Swissmetro, an interesting proposal of a maglev train in partial vacuum.
History of Vactrains
The concept of Vactrains is not a recent one. Proposals have been made for a nonevacuated
transatlantic tunnel which would link the United States and Great Britain. This
idea was also highlighted in the German film, Der Tunnel which came out in 1933 and its
English version, the British film, Transatlantic Tunnel, which came out in 1935. The
modern concept of the Vactrain, as it is understood today, consisting of evacuated tubes
and involving maglev technology was first proposed by American engineer Robert
Goddard (Wikipedia).
Robert Goddard was an undergraduate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. During his
time in WPI, he wrote a paper in which he proposed a method for balancing aeroplanes,
which got published in the Scientific American. After getting his B.S. in WPI, Goddard
enrolled in Clark University where he did his Masters and then continued his research at
Princeton. Robert Goddard launched the world’s first liquid fuelled rocket in 1926. He
launched rockets which could attain speed of up to 550 miles an hour. Even though his
work was revolutionary, he got little credit for his work. Along the years, he eventually
came to be called one of the Fathers of modern rocketry. His documents on Vactrains too
were discovered after his death (Mag). As a university student he designed detailed
prototypes of the Vactrain. According to the train designs which were found after his
death in 1945, his train would travel from Boston to New York in 12 minutes at a speed
of 1000 mph.
The first time that Vactrains made headlines was in the 1970s when Robert F. Salter, who
was a leading advocated of the RAND corporation (Research and Development),
published engineering articles in 1972 and in 1978 (Wikipedia). As said by Robert Salter,
in an interview by LA times, the U.S. government could build a tube shuttle system with
the technologies available at that time fairly easily. He also said that such systems reduce
damage done to the environment by aviation and surface transportation. Although he said
that underground Very High Speed Transportation (tube shuttles) was the nation’s next
logical step, his plan never became a reality.
During the time these reports were being published, national prestige was of
consideration as Japan’s bullet train was in operation and research in Maglev trains was
on. Maglev or Magnetic Levitation Transport is a form of transportation that suspended,
guided and propelled vehicles using electromagnetic forces. Trans-planetary subway
service would be established by the American Planetran in the United States which could
commute to Los Angeles from New York City in one hour. This tunnel was to be buried
several hundred feet deep in solid rock formations. Alignment was to be taken care of by
using lasers and tungsten probes would be used to melt through igneous rock formations.
Partial vacuum was to be maintained so that drag could be minimized. Passengers would
experience forces up to 1.4 times that of gravity and the speed of the trip would be 3000
mph. This would require using gimbaled compartments. A gumball is a mechanical
device which allows the rotation of an object in multiple directions. It is made up of two
or three pairs of pivots mounted on axes at right angles. Construction costs estimated
were magnanimous, (around US$ 1 trillion) which was why Salter’s proposal was not
executed.
There have been recent proposals on Vactrains by Frank Davidson, a pioneer of the
Channel Tunnel project and Yoshihiro Kyonati, a Japanese Engineer, who tackled
transoceanic problems by floating a tube above the ocean floor, anchored with cables.
This tube was proposed to be at a depth of 100 feet from the ocean surface to avoid water
turbulence (Mag).
Technology
High Speed Rail
High speed is a relative term and the definition of high speed rail varies from country to
country. The International Union of Railways (UIC) classifies high speed rail as all trains
that can travel above 250km/hr. At present, there are a number of countries that have
access to high speed rail with the major ones being Japan, France, United Kingdom, Italy,
Germany and Spain. (International Union of Railways)