A Hyperloop test tube is being built in the southeast of Munich. Test drives are scheduled to begin in 2023. Now it was groundbreaking.
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This illustration shows a fictional Hyperloop tube in the Bavarian countryside.
© TUM Hyperloop
Update 4.10:
On September 30, 2022, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Hyperloop test track at the TU Munich took place in Ottobrunn. The test tube is made of ultra-high-strength concrete, will be 24 meters long and will cost 3.5 million euros. The trials are scheduled to begin in 2023. People are not yet transported with the capsule, only objects.
The new test area at the TUM location in Ottobrunn/Taufkirchen can be divided into three basic areas, as the makers explain: “The most obvious component of the demonstrator is the concrete tube, in which the passenger capsule will later move. Here, above all, the sealing should be on a real scale be researched, since the Hyperloop system is based on an almost vacuum. The capsule itself will serve as the second major research area. In addition to the magnetic levitation system, the focus here is on the safety of the passengers in the vacuum of the tube. The third and final area is the operational control system and hence the control of tube and capsule and the propulsion system in the tube”. Gabriele Semino, project manager at TUM Hyperloop, continues: “We integrate all key systems into the demonstrator, which means that the technical feasibility of the Hyperloop concept can be examined holistically. Thanks to the real-size realization and the realistic passenger cabin, the system can be certified in the last step and thus used for passenger operations”.
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A Hyperloop test track is currently being built in the southeast of Munich, as reported by Bayerischer Rundfunk. At some point people will roar through the tube at 1000 km/h.
The location of the first Bavarian Hyperloop test track will be Ottobrunn. There, after five years of planning, a team from the Technical University of Munich finally wants to implement the tube project. The Hyperloop is to be built on a kind of parking lot right near the offices where the team conducts research. The first preliminary work is already underway and the test track should be completed by the end of 2022.
But you shouldn’t imagine a kilometer-long tube underneath it. Because this first tube is to be just 24 meters long and made of concrete. A vacuum is then created in the hermetically sealed tube, so that the transport capsule can slide forward, magnetically driven, without air resistance. With breathtaking speed. The experiments are scheduled to start in 2023. During the first test drives, however, there will only be objects in the capsules.
And what is all this for?
Hyperloop pods would be significantly faster than trains. As a means of transport, the Hyperloop could give traffic a whole new boost. Some calculation examples at an assumed Hyperloop speed of 1000 km/h:
Munich – Berlin: around 34 minutes
Berlin – Paris: around 1 hour
Berlin – Brussels: around 42 minutes
But it will be many years before people actually drive Hyperloop capsules in regular operation.
The Munich Hyperloop team is by no means a blank slate; on the contrary, it has already won many competitions:
463 km/h: Team from the Technical University of Munich wins Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition again
Record at 467 km/h: Munich wins Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition
Hyperloop from Munich reaches 324 km/h