Hyperloop UPV information

Hyperloop UPV (a. k. a. Hyperloop Makers UPV) is a team of students from the Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia, Spain) with the aim of designing Hyperloop, a proposed future means of transport. With renewable energies, the vehicle will levitate inside a vacuum tube, being able to reach 1,200 km/h (750 mph).

The concept developed by Hyperloop UPV is distinguished by the use of magnetic levitation based on attraction to the top of the tube thanks to its levitation units located at the top of the pod, instead of air-bearing systems based on repulsion to a rail located at the bottom of the tube. Moreover, its aerodynamic design allows to a compensation of inertial forces that permit a higher radius of curvature, a lower cost for the air-evacuation and up to a 30% savings in infrastructure, with respect to other proposals. This revolutionary concept of Hyperloop is powered by detachable batteries and is propelled through compression and expansion of the air with a nozzle. A turbine recovers energy from the flow allowing a more efficient journey. With all these features it is pretended to reach velocities up to 1200 km/h, in a totally efficient manner, due to the use of renewable energies and prescinding from the use of fossil fuels.

The initial team in Design Weekend was composed of five students from the student community Makers UPV: Ángel Benedicto, Daniel Orient, David Pistoni, Germán Torres and Juan Vicén, together with advisor Vicente Dolz, assistant Professor at CMT- Motores Térmicos,^[1] Universitat Politècnica de València. They were awarded Top Design Concept and Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence Award^[2] at SpaceX's Design Weekend, the first phase of the Hyperloop Pod Competition 1 held in Texas in January 2016.

The team was expanded to more than 30 students in September 2016 in order to build a full-size prototype for SpaceX's Pod Competition,^[3] and in April 2017 the team was selected by SpaceX to participate in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2, which was held in Los Angeles days 25–27 August 2017 in collaboration with Purdue University,^[4][5] becoming the world's first transatlantic student collaboration in the history of the development of the Hyperloop. They ranked amongst the best ten teams of the world in the Hyperloop Pod Competition 2. Nowadays, being a team of more than 40 people and with the support of many institutions and enterprises, the team is designing an improved prototype with the aim of winning the Hyperloop Pod Competition 3, scheduled in summer 2018.^[6]