SpaceX will hold the second round of Super High Speed ​​Rail Design Contest in August this year

[Global Science and Technology Report] According to the British "Daily Mail" reported on April 17, SpaceX announced that the second round of Hyperloop Design Competition will be held in Hawthorne, California on August 25-27, 2017. . The company's founder, Elon Musk, took a step closer to his dream of aerodynamic high-speed transport systems. The Super High Speed ​​Rail is the ground transportation concept proposed by Musk in 2013. The carriage capacity is 20-30 passengers and can pass through a 3.7-meter-diameter tunnel at a speed of about 1127 kilometers per hour. However, the size of the racing compartment is only half the size of the prototype and it cannot carry passengers. In January 2016, more than 100 college students participated in the first round of high-speed rail design competitions. They tested the cars on a one-mile (1.6-kilometer) SpaceX special track. In the end, only 30 teams were in the second round. Among them, Delft University of Technology surpassed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to win the championship; Munich Technical University won the fastest access track award; and the University of Wisconsin harvested the best creative award by placing a VR-designed carriage, “Badgerloop”. Now they have to return to the game and decide on the fastest car. SpaceX said: "The second round requires only one: the fastest. The game will include new teams and old teams that have already participated in the first round." In the past week, the teams have been conducting pre-game testing, hoping to have Opportunity to run your own compartment on SpaceX's 1-mile super high-speed rail test track. Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands has the highest score among the 30 teams and is expected to win the championship. Thanks to the use of strong, lightweight carbon fiber materials, the team is about 4.5 meters long and about 1 meter high, but weighs only 149 kilograms. They use permanent magnets to suspend the carriage above the track, which consumes very little energy. According to the team, if the track is long enough, the maximum speed of the carriage may be as high as 1200 kilometers per hour. They are very much looking forward to a try in the second round. In the first round, Badgerloop won the Best Creative Award, but due to an electromechanical system error, the carriage did not run successfully. But the team is already ready for the second round of the game and the director of operations, Claire Holesovsky, said: "The Badgerloop will certainly continue. I can't wait to see our next work." However, according to the SpaceX jury, it is indeed very difficult to ensure that the design of the high-speed suspension cabin is not an error. They are more inclined to think that a single team cannot clear all the technical obstacles and make the carriages run safely on the track. So far, there are no super high-speed rails in the world. Skeptics even question whether this technology can complete the leap from science fiction to reality. (Internship Compilation: Zheng Zheng reviewer: Li Zongze)

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