High-speed transport pioneering firm, Hyperloop One, has opened its first manufacturing plant to help build and shape the future of high-speed transportation
The US company, which was formed to explore entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Hyperloop transport concept, has opened the first Hyperloop manufacturing plant in the world. The a 105,000 sq ft facility in north Las Vegas will be used to make components for ‘Devloop’, the first test bed of the platform.
The ‘Hyperloop One Metalworks’ facility is a tooling and fabrication site which will house engineers, technicians, machinists and welders who will build and test many of the components going into Devloop – the full system Hyperloop prototype which is set to begin trial runs early next year.
The facility will also house production systems that the company plans to begin building in the years to come, while also featuring a test lab for the Transponics system, the technology which is responsible for launching the Hyperloop cars to high speeds.
Hyperloop offers travel at 800mph in a vacuum tube
Hyperloop is a new mode of on-demand transportation that moves people and cargo through near-vacuum tubes at airline speeds using electric propulsion over a non-contact levitation track.
The system offers high speed, intercity trasnport which uses passenger and cargo capsules inside a reduced-pressure tube system that can reach top speeds of 800 mph (1,287 km/h) with a yearly capacity of 15 million passengers.
Hyperloop One is the only company in the world currently building a complete system using this high-speed transportation method.
Co-founder and president of engineering at Hyperloop One, Josh Giegel, said the new facility would play an essential part in the development of the future of high-speed transportation.
“The facility is essential as we continue testing and is an incredible asset as we continue on the path towards making Hyperloop a reality,” he said.
“The equipment housed at Metalworks gives us the flexibility and freedom to build rapidly and develop the Hyperloop in real-time.”
Over the next few months, the Metalworks facility will build items such as the joints between the Hyperloop tube and its supporting columns, along with the cradles that will hold and protect the tubes prior to their installation.
To help make its technology a reality, Hyperloop One will have a world-class facility at its disposal in the form of Metalworks, which will feature brand new CNC mills, lathes, welding machines and tables, and a state-of-the-art metrology room for accurately measuring the key materials and subcomponents of the system in a controlled environment.
Another feature of the Metalworks facility is the Flow waterjet cutters which blast water at extremely high pressures to cut virtually any shape in any material at speeds of up to 36m per minute with an accuracy of up to 1/1000th of an inch.
The Hyperloop technology, which will be developed at the Metalworks facility, could help to shape the future of high-speed transportation as we know it, with the projects potential success promising for example a half-hour time travel between Stockholm and Sweden (about 300 miles).
Hyperloop One plans to have a working prototype by 2017, thanks to its new world-class Metalworks facility.
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