User:MakeBelieveMonster/Evacuated tube transport

Evacuated tube transport is the use of a magnetic levitation train in a low air pressure tunnel to achieve greater speeds.

A vactrain (or vacuum tube train) is a proposed, as-yet-unbuilt design for future high-speed railroad transportation. This would entail building maglev lines through evacuated (air-less) or partly evacuated tubes or tunnels. Though the technology is currently being investigated for development of regional networks, advocates have suggested establishing vactrains for transcontinental routes to form a global network. The lack of air resistance could permit vactrains to use little power and to move at extremely high speeds, up to 4000–5000 mph (6400–8000 km/h), or 5–6 times the speed of sound at sea level and standard conditions, according to the Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering program "Transatlantic Tunnel".

Theoretically, vactrain tunnels could be built deep enough to pass under oceans, thus permitting very rapid intercontinental travel. Vactrains could also use gravity to assist their acceleration. If such trains went as fast as predicted, the trip between London and New York would take less than an hour, effectively supplanting aircraft as the world's fastest mode of public transportation.

Travel through evacuated tubes allows supersonic speed without the penalty of sonic boom found with supersonic aircraft. The trains could operate faster than Mach 1 (at sea level) without noise. Also supersonic travel requires a large increase in propulsive power as one enters the near-sonic region. Again with reduced air pressure the speed of the onset of this effect will also increase, allowing faster speeds with lower energy requirements.

However, without major advances in tunnelling and other technology, vactrains would be prohibitively expensive. Alternatives such as elevated concrete tubes with partial vacuums have been proposed to reduce costs.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering are currently working on a vacuum tube train project which is set to reach speeds up to 1,000 km/h (620 mph) and "technology could be in daily use in the next 10 years."

Design description

How ETT is designed to work:

Air is permanently removed (evacuated with vacuum pumps) from two five foot (1.5 m) diameter tubes built along a travel route. Car-sized passenger/cargo capsules travel in the tubes on frictionless maglev. Airlocks at stations allow transfer without admitting air. Linear motors safely accelerate the capsules, for most of the trip they coast through the vacuum without using additional energy. Acceleration energy is recovered by using linear generators to decelerate the capsules. ETT is not pneumatic tube transport (PTT) commonly used at drive-up banks. ETT is claimed to be able to accomplish fifty times more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains because travel occurs without air resistance or rolling resistance.

ETT is a form of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), accordingly ETT may be networked like freeways, and the automobile sized capsules are automatically routed like internet traffic, so a capsule can exit at any desired branch. Proposed speeds are up to 350 mph (560 km/h) for in-state use and up to 4,000 mph (6,400 km/h) for cross country and global travel.

Empty ETT capsules weigh 400 lb (180 kg) yet can accommodate six people or three pallets of cargo. Guideways to support ETT capsules require 1/20th the material needed to support trains due the ultra light weight loadings. Material efficiency and automated production promise to drop cost to less than 1/10 that of High Speed Rail, or 1/4 that of freeways. Automated switching allows a 350 mph (560 km/h) ETT route to exceed the capacity of a 32 lane freeway, producing further economy.

The ETT technology is similar to a vactrain, but the PRT design philosophy is more similar to automobiles operating on a freeway, than to trains on a track. Vactrains can haul much larger loads than ETT, just like a train can haul bigger loads than a car. The cost of vactrain infrastructure is estimated to be more than an order of magnitude greater than ETT (just trains at $50k/seat cost ten times more than cars at $5k/seat). One reason is because the ETT vehicle mass is two orders of magnitude less than a maglev train. Because of low cost, and point to point routing, ETT has the potential to eventually serve most homes.

Early history

The first proposal of travel in evacuated tubes, was explored in the 1910s by American engineer Robert Goddard, who designed detailed prototypes while a university student. His patented system of travel was proposed to support the pressurized vehicles on a super heated mercury vapor film (also used for rocket propulsion) and would have traveled from Boston to New York in 12 minutes, averaging 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h). The designs were found only after Goddard's death in 1945 and his wife filed for the patents.

During the 1970s a leading advocate of the concept of travel in an evacuated environment was Robert M. Salter of RAND. He published two preliminary engineering articles in 1972 and again in 1978. An interview with Robert Salter appeared in the LA TIMES (June 11, 1972). He discussed, in detail, the relative ease with which the U.S. government could build a tube shuttle system using technologies available at that time.

Salter pointed out how such a system would help reduce the environmental damage being done to the atmosphere by aviation and surface transportation. Salter proposed system was called underground Very High Speed Transportation (VHST) in early reports, and later "Planetran", our nation's "logical next step". The plans were never taken to the next stage.

At the time these reports were published, national prestige was an issue as Japan had been operating its showcase bullet train for several years and maglev train research was hot technology. The American Planetran would establish transcontinental subway service in the United States and provide a commute from Los Angeles to New York City in one hour. The tunnel would be buried to a depth of several hundred feet in solid rock formations. Construction would make use of lasers to ensure alignment and use tungsten probes to melt through igneous rock formations. The tunnel would maintain a partial vacuum to minimize drag. A trip would average 3,000 mph (4,800 km/h) and subject passengers to forces up to 1.4 times that of gravity, requiring the use of gimballed compartments. Enormous construction costs (estimated as high as US$1 trillion) were the primary reason why Salter's proposal was never built.

Starting in the late 1970s and early '80s, the Swissmetro was proposed to leverage the invention of the experimental German Transrapid maglev train, and operate in large underground tunnels reduced to the pressure altitude of 68,000 feet (21,000 m) at which the Concorde SST was certified to fly.

In the 1980s Frank P. Davidson, a founding member and long term chairman of the Channel Tunnel project, and Japanese engineer Yoshihiro Kyonati have tackled the transoceanic problems by floating a tube above the ocean floor, anchored with cables. The transit tube would remain at least 1,000 feet (300 m) below the ocean surface to avoid water turbulence. Their work was show cased on The Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering, and the Transatlantic Tunnel.

History

The trade name "Evacuated Tube Transport" (ETT) was coined by Daryl Oster in the early 1990s, Oster applied for a patent on ETT in 1997.

In 1999, et3.com Inc. was incorporated in Florida as an international consortium of licensees to research, develop, and implement ETT. The licensees are individuals, experts, companies, and institutions that number over 75 as of May 2010. The et3 in the company name refers to 'Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies' (et3), trademarks of et3.com Inc.

In 2001 et3.com Inc. was one of 20 companies that qualified to submit a bid to the Florida High Speed Rail Authority (FHSRA) to Design Build, Operate, and Maintain (DBOM) a high speed ground transportation system to satisfy the requirements of constitutional changes in Florida.

In the winter of 2002-2003, Daryl Oster, (the founder of et3.com Inc.) was invited to China by Dr. Zhang Yaoping and Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) in Chengdu to present the patented ETT technology to the university for use with the High Temperature Superconductor Maglev (HTSM) technology invented by Professors Wang Jiasu and Wang Suyu. Subsequently, ETT was presented to and evaluated by: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), The Design Institute of The Ministry of Rail, and several other Universities and institutions in China. As a result of Oster's visit, Dr. Zhang, Professor Wang, and the School of Traffic and Transportation of SWJTU along with several others in China acquired license to the ETT technology, and et3.com Inc. acquired license to HTSM technology for use in ETT. Several ETT projects licensed by et3 are independently operating in China.

In 2003, et3.com Inc. was one of 4 companies who submitted a proposal to the FHSRA for the initial phase of the High Speed Ground Transportation system mandated by constitutional changes voted for in the year 2000. The firm fixed bid for the 96-mile (154 km) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system was $253M, this was less than one tenth of the cost of the bid by Global Rail Consortium to build electrified double track High Speed Rail for $2.6B. The bid by et3 contained letters of support by three entities in China to supply IP and key materials for the project. The engineering consultants hired by the authority did not dispute the validity of the et3 bid price or ETT technology, but recommended to eliminate the et3 bid from consideration for other reasons.

The ETT concept was theoretically described in 2003 by Okano et al., only regarding the transportation of goods and not people. Okano discussed a particularly advanced type of maglev train, the HTS Maglev (with High temperature superconductor magnets); earlier papers discussing a less advanced maglev in a low-pressure tunnel may exist. A company called et3.com Inc. registered a patent for trade mark name Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT), a supposedly transportation technology which it advertises on its website with the marketing slogan 'Space Travel on Earth'. Okano et al. made no mention of the ETT patent or people transport.

In 2003, Oster met with Frank P. Davidson, a founding member of the Channel Tunnel project, Japanese engineer Yoshihiro Kyonati, and ocean engineer Ernst Frankel at Davidson's home in Concord MA.

In 2004, Frank P. Davidson held a private conference in Normandy France, where Oster was invited to present ETT to a couple dozen attendees.

In 2004-2005, Oster was again invited to China to help found new ETT programs. A book is published by Tsinghua University Press in China titled "A New Industrial Era Coming, Initial Dialogue on Evacuated Tube Transportation (ETT)" by Zhang and Oster.

In 2005, a paper about ETT was presented at the international Automated People Mover (APM) conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in Orlando FL, and published in the conference proceedings.

In 2007 and again in 2008, et3 was visited by representatives from the Korean Rail Research Institute (KRRI) who commissioned et3 to consult on their plans to implement Tube Transport.

In 2009, KRRI representatives traveled to China to collaborate on ETT with Zhang and Wang.

In November 2009, KRRI announced plans to build a tube transport system with a design speed of 700 km/h.

History

The modern concept of a vactrain, with evacuated tubes and maglev technology, was explored in the 1910s by American engineer Robert Goddard, who designed detailed prototypes while a university student. His train would have traveled from Boston to New York in 12 minutes, averaging 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h). The train designs were found only after Goddard's death in 1945.

Russian professor Boris Weinberg offered a vactrain concept in 1914 in the book Motion without friction (airless electric way) and built the first maglev prototypes in 1913.

Vactrains made headlines during the 1970s when a leading advocate, Robert M. Salter of RAND, published a series of elaborate engineering articles in 1972 and again in 1978.

An interview with Robert Salter appeared in the LA Times (June 11, 1972). He discussed, in detail, the relative ease with which the U.S. government could build a tube shuttle system using technologies available at that time. Maglev being poorly developed at the time, he proposed steel wheels. The chamber's door to the tube would be opened, and enough air admitted behind to accelerate the train into the tube. Gravity would further accelerate the departing train down to cruise level. Rising from cruise level, the arriving train would decelerate by compressing the rarefied air ahead of it, which would be vented. Pumps at the stations would make up for losses due to friction or air escaping around the edges of the train, the train itself requiring no motor. This combination of modified (shallow) gravity train and atmospheric railway propulsion would consume little energy but limit the system to subsonic speeds, hence initial routes of tens or hundreds of miles or kilometers rather than transcontinental distances were proposed.

Trains were to require no couplers, each car being directly welded, bolted, or otherwise firmly connected to the next, the route calling for no more bending than the flexibility of steel could easily handle. At the end of the line the train would be moved sideways into the end chamber of the return tube. The railway would have both an inner evacuated tube and an outer tunnel. At cruise depth, the space between would have enough water to float the vacuum tube, softening the ride.

A route through the Northeast Megalopolis was laid out, with nine stations, one each in DC, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and two in Connecticut. Commuter rail systems were mapped for the San Francisco and New York areas, the commuter version having longer, heavier trains, to be propelled less by air and more by gravity than the intercity version. The New York system was to have three lines, terminating in Babylon, Paterson, Huntington, Elizabeth, White Plains, and St. George.

Salter also pointed out how such a system would help reduce the environmental damage being done to the atmosphere by aviation and surface transportation. Robert Salter called underground Very High Speed Transportation (tube shuttles) our nation's "logical next step." The plans were never taken to the next stage.

At the time these reports were published, national prestige was an issue as Japan had been operating its showcase bullet train for several years and maglev train research was hot technology. The American Planetran would establish transcontinental subway service in the United States and provide a commute from Los Angeles to New York City in one hour. The tunnel would be buried to a depth of several hundred feet in solid rock formations. Construction would make use of lasers to ensure alignment and use tungsten probes to melt through igneous rock formations. The tunnel would maintain a partial vacuum to minimize drag. A trip would average 3,000 mph (4,800 km/h) and subject passengers to forces up to 1.4 times that of gravity, requiring the use of gimballed compartments. Enormous construction costs (estimated as high as US$1 trillion) were the primary reason why Salter's proposal was never built.

Recent vactrain proposals by Frank P. Davidson, a founding member of the Channel Tunnel project, and Japanese engineer Yoshihiro Kyotani（ja） have tackled the transoceanic problems by floating a tube above the ocean floor, anchored with cables. The transit tube would remain at least 1,000 feet (300 m) below the ocean surface to avoid water turbulence.

Dr. James Powell, former co-inventor of superconducting maglev in the 1960s, has since 2001 led investigation of a concept for using a maglev vactrain for space launch (theoretically two orders of magnitude less marginal cost than present rockets), where the StarTram proposal would have vehicles reach up to 8,900 mph (14,300 km/h) to 19,600 mph (31,500 km/h) within an acceleration tunnel (lengthy to limit g-forces), considering boring through the ice sheet in Antarctica for lower anticipated expense than in rock.

Chinese researchers have recently began working on prototypes for Vactrains that could travel at speeds of 1000km/h within the next 2 years

Popular culture

Vactrains have occasionally appeared in science fiction novels, including the works of Arthur C. Clarke (Rescue Party, 1946), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, 1950), Peter F. Hamilton (The Night's Dawn Trilogy), Joe Haldeman (in his novel Buying Time), Larry Niven (A World Out of Time), Robert A. Heinlein (Friday), Jerry Yulsman (Elleander Morning), and Jasper Fforde (the Thursday Next novels). Flash Gordon (1947) and the movie Logan's Run (1976) featured similar high-speed transport trains. The Space: 1999 TV series, featured a Lunar Vactrain. 23rd century San Francisco has one stretching across the Golden Gate Bridge in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Earlier Gene Roddenberry television productions, Genesis II and Planet Earth, featured such transport systems. A similar transportation system epitomizes the technological utopianism of the 1950s in the song "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)" on Donald Fagen's 1982 album The Nightfly:

You've got to admit it—

At this point in time, that it's clear...

The future looks bright

On that train all graphite and glitter

Undersea by rail

Ninety minutes from New York to Paris

Well, by '76, we'll be A-OK!

See also

• Atmospheric railway
• Swissmetro
• Transatlantic tunnel
• StarTram
• Pneumatic tube

External links

• YouTube Video of 6500 km/h (4000 mph) Vactrain models
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute page discussing Goddard's achievements
• Evacuated Tube Transportation Technologies
• Evacuated Tube Transportation Technologies alternative site
• Vac Trains at Orion's Arm
• Rail Journal
• Popular science
• Hydrogen Tube Vehicle
• China Plans 1,000 KPH Super Train

Academic journals

• Okano, M. and T. Iwamoto, S. Fuchino, and N. Tamada (2003) Feasibility of a goods transportation system with a superconducting magnetic levitation guide-load characteristics of a magnetic levitation guide using a bulk high-Tc superconductor, published in Physica C: Superconductivity and its Applications, vol. 386, pp. 500–505, 2003.
• Wang et al. (2005) Design consideration of a high temperature superconductor Maglev vehicle system published in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity VOL. 15, NO. 2, JUNE 2005, pp. 2273–2276. By researches at the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory at Southwest Jiaotong University. Full text.
• Wang et al. (2007) Laboratory-Scale High Temperature Superconducting Maglev Launch System

Needing reliability check

• Maglev trains may be tranportation's future in the English edition of People's Daily, official newspaper of Communist Party of China, May 25, 2010
• Rosencrance, Linda (2001) Shipping Goes Down The Tubes, published by Computerworld March 26, 2001

Unpublished or amateur websites

• http://asclab.swjtu.edu.cn/Papersys/Papers%5C39.pdf, no publishing information
• Maglev Trains – Future of Transportation, no author specified, no sources given, 7 June 2010, posted by maglev.net, a site by a "maglev enthusiast"
• http://trainsnotlanes.info/Documents/Presentation4.ppt (presentation by patent owner et3.com, some bibliography on last slide)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-ZxBq8clg Zeitgeist Addendum
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtfOAIfsLt8&feature=watch_response_rev (more Zeitgeist)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92dK_yxaKvk&feature=watch_response

Patents

• http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pctdocs/en/1999/pct_1999_16-section1.pdf
• http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=1999019195
• www.patentoffice.nic.in/ipr/.../official_journal_24032006.pdf
• http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5950543.html
• http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5950543.html

Raw files

• http://files.asme.org/Volunteer/Unit/18966.xls (database file)
• http://remco.tk/handig/GPL_TLA_FAQ (list of acronyms)

Broken links

• [1] (broken link)
• http://www.docstoc.com/.../ETT-PROPOSAL-FOR-FLORIDA-HIGH-SPEED-GROUND-TRANSPORTATION (broken link)

Needing verification

• http://carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/dailyreport?PROJID=5&date=20100319
• http://www.capsu.org/library/documents/0023.html
• http://macrocenter.rwu.edu/2004/conferencereport.htm
• http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookinfo.phtml?nr=362310789&Language=en
• http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?paratrk=&isbn=9787302088912&ltrec=t
• http://magnetbahnforum.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4853
• http://copies.sinoshu.com/copy4201671/
• http://magnetbahnforum.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2721&sid=411ecfe7fcfe81b2bb8ff67e0d6a2e37
• [2]
• http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug252003/430.pdf
• http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/40944-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-next
• http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug252003/431.pdf
• http://globeu.com/?p=6
• http://globeu.com/?p=101
• http://article.wn.com/view/2010/06/03/Reportlinker_Adds_Global_Sustainable_Energy_Investments_2010/
• http://www.szlib.gov.cn/Search/searchdetail.jsp?v_tablearray=bibliosm&v_recno=464396&v_curtable=bibliosm&site=
• http://www.cnyoutube.com/video/03kVU2FYl6U/Evacuated-Tube-Transportation-Technology-ET3-Extended-Version.html
• http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?reload=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F77%2F4277259%2F04277798.pdf%3Farnumber%3D4277798&authDecision=-203
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
• http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/33782892?selectedversion=NBD42952158
• http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/rail/trains/high_speed/index.aspx
• "The East Coast Very High Speed Train Scoping Study Phase 1 - Preliminary Study Final Report" (Australian government report).

External links

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute page discussing Goddard's achievements
• Evacuated Tube Transportation Technologies
• The et3 Consortium Website
• Rand : White Paper
• Popular science