The Indian Railways and IIT-Madras have joined forces to construct India’s Hyperloop, a novel system that intends to use magnetic levitation technology in tubes to allow travel at plane-like speeds.
About the Hyperloop
The Railways were drawn to this project because of its minimal energy requirements, according to a statement released by the ministry on Thursday, underlining the assistance this technology may provide as the country strives to achieve carbon neutrality.
In terms of functionality, the Indian system will be comparable to the Virgin Hyperloop facility in the United States but will beat it greatly in terms of cost, according to the statement. The railways would also assist the institute in establishing a Hyperloop Technologies Centre of Excellence.
Origin of the Project
The Ministry’s curiosity was sparked, according to the statement, when it learned that a group of 70 IIT-Madras students known as ‘Avishkar Hyperloop’ has been working on the technology since 2017, using scalability and frugal engineering concepts for a Hyperloop-based transportation system.
It went on to say that the team was the only Asian team to place in the top ten in the world at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition-2019. In addition, at the European Hyperloop Week in 2021, their project won the Most Scalable Design Award.
Project’s Investment
The Ministry was approached in March this year by IIT-Madras, which proposed collaborating on a project to develop a contactless pod prototype as well as the first-of-its-kind Hyperloop Test Facility at its Discovery Campus in Thaiyur, according to the statement.
According to the statement, it claims that the institute estimates that the project will cost Rs 8.34 crore. Once built, the proposed facility will house the world’s largest Hyperloop Vacuum Tube, which will serve as a test bed for Indian Railways’ Hyperloop research.
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