TU Delft team brings hyperloop demo to U.S. for Elon Musk competition

A team of TU Delft students will be presenting their hyperloop-demo in Texas this weekend for the Elon Musk hyperloop competition, public transport magazine OV reports.

The competition challenged students and businesses around the world to design, build and test their own hyperloop capsule. More than a hundred teams will be presenting their designs at the second round of the competition at Space X in Texas this weekend.

After the presentation in Texas, the TU Delft team of about 30 students will immediately start building their prototype capsule, which will be tested in the final round of the competition in Hawthorne, California this summer. The hyperloop capsules will "race" in a 1.6 kilometer long test tube built next to the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne. Experts from Tesla Motors, Space X and a number of professors will evaluate the capsules on design and performance.

A hyperloop is a system of pipes on poles in which capsules can move very rapidly. Due to the low air pressure in the tubes, the air resistance is so small that the capsules can move at about 1,200 kilometers per hour. Theoretically this means that the hyperloop can transport passengers from Amsterdam to Paris or Berlin within 30 minutes.

"The transport sector is one of the biggest energy consumers in the worlds", said Delft Hyperloop team captain Tim Houter. "Innovation has long been hard to find. That must change. The Hyperloop must be after the boat, car, train and plane the fifth form of transport."