• Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The reason why the Hyperloop is such a bad idea is that it would literally be the largest vaccum chamber ever built by orders of magnitude, and even if it does work, just one small leak on the tube somewhere and the people inside will get Titan submersible’d due to the sudden deceleration. (Depending on the design, the pod could be fine though)

    Maglevs are a much more realistic option if speeds higher than high speed rail are needed, and even those are usually cost prohibitive.

    • nymwit@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Kind of the opposite of the Titan submersible regarding pressure differential. The inside of the Hyperloop pods are kept at atmospheric pressure. If the tunnel became depressurized it would only reduce the pressure differential in the pod. Of course they’d all be liquefied in a crash at the proposed speeds…

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      That isn’t how it works at all. The maximum pressure difference possible in the hyperloop would be 1 atm, this is relatively easy to design around with high factors of safety. The titan was under ~300 atm of compressive stress due to the ocean which is why it imploded.

      • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Please read what I wrote on my post more carefully.

        What I stated was that the pod could be fine, because I don’t expect it to implode or explode, but the sudden deceleration from the leak (from warpage and deformation of a tube shaped vaccum chamber at that scale) will get the people inside Titan submersible’d from crashing into the pod internal walls at 350km/h, because it’s a pretty gory image that I didn’t want to type out.