Hyperloop transportation was originally proposed by SpaceX and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk in 2013. It involves a passenger capsule traveling at nearly the speed of sound through a network of above-ground vacuum tubes. A proposed application would be a Los Angeles-San Francisco route of nearly 400 miles that would take approximately 35 minutes to travel, radically transforming the speed and safety of passenger mass transit. Musk and SpaceX have encouraged others to develop the idea.

IE’s Lavelle says, “I realized at the competition that I was involved in the beginning of a revolutionary change in transportation. When fully implemented, people will have many more opportunities for the way they live their lives, such as living and working in cities that are far apart.”

Paul Witsberger, Purdue’s team captain and a senior in aeronautics and astronautics, says the design project is a very multi-disciplinary problem. The team included students from the College of Engineering’s schools of Industrial Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the College of Science’s departments of Computer Science and Physics and Astronomy.

Industrial engineering played a part in the design. “I was personally involved in designing a user interface that will display requirements such as pressure, temperature, velocity, and attitude within the pod,” says Lavelle.

Other ways that IEs might be involved in this type of project include developing safety protocol, information systems, and ergonomics. Interested IE students should consider taking the required hyperloop class (AAE 490), follow the team on Twitter @PurdueHyperloop.

Although the MIT team won the competition, 22 other teams including the Purdue Hyperloop Team will test their pod designs at SpaceX’s Hyperloop Test Track near Hawthorne, CA, this summer.

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/purdueengineering

News releases:

http://www.popsci.com/behind-scenes-at-spacexs-hyperloop-pod-competition

Writer: DeEtte Starr, starrd@purdue.edu