Sacramento club designs aluminium-intensive pod for SpaceX Hyperloop Competition Summer 2017

Hornet Hyperloop, a Sacramento State Student club, is competing in the Hyperloop Competition Summer 2017, scheduled for August 25-27. Hornet Hyperloop is one out of the 24 international teams qualified to compete in the official event of SpaceX, the American aerospace manufacturing and space transport services company founded by Elon Musk. The team's entry for the competition is a scaled-downed pod that has parts made of different types of aluminium. Stainless steel has been used on the joints only. But why aluminium? - For the answer, we need to first know what 'Hyperloop' is all about.

The concept of Hyperloop, founded by Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk in 2013, is to have a pod capable of carrying people or cargo levitating through an almost airless tube faster than the speed of sound, allowing a travel time of around 30 minutes from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Aluminium being lightweight and non-magnetic in nature scores ahead of other materials as perfect choice for the pod body. It facilitates high-speed mobility and ensures safety and strength while not complicating the operability of the driver and driving magnets.  

Hornet Hyperloop has used different types of aluminium as parts of its pod prototype, and stainless steel as the joint material so that neither speed nor strength is compromised in any way. 

While commenting on the design of their pod, Hornet Hyperloop said that the movement of the pod is not the same as a conventional train with wheels on tracks. It actually levitates by the force between the magnets on the pod and the magnets on the floor of the tube to reduce drag and friction. The blistering speed the pod (approximately 200 miles per hour) is achieved by using the kinetic energy of the magnets to push the pod along.

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SpaceX's Hyperloop has instilled in technology school teams an unforeseen zeal to think and build something that is truly out-of-the-box. Working technology like this in a way never done before, Cracraft, a senior in majoring mechanical engineering working on the project, said. Some serious problem-solving at the designing and crafting part has been required.

“The Hyperloop has helped me to learn how to take a concept and an idea and turn it into an actual final design,” Cracraft said. “As far as going forward I want to be in the aerospace industry so working on a project like this is definitely helpful in that,” he added.