Samueli School of Engineering

Abstract: The Hyperloop pod is a vehicle that is set to revolutionize the technological advancement of transportation systems. Like the bullet train, it is meant to transverse from point A to B at a tremendous speed, making it convenient for people that rely on transportation systems for traveling and commuting. However, the Hyperloop pod is designed to travel through a vacuum tube to negate air friction so that the pod can achieve high accelerations. Ideally, the concept compensates the practical modes of transportation by being relatively inexpensive compared to airfares and fast compared to public transportation methods. The HyperXite team has been building scaled-down prototype pods for the past four years with this Hyperloop vision in mind. After determining that building a full prototype pod would not be feasible for the team this year given the state of the competition and budgetary constraints, the team decided to move forward with a scaled down version of the pod with design concepts that we wanted to test. We set a loose requirement of a 3-foot-long pod that would still be able to move along the I-beam track with the given dimensions from the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop competition. The pod stands at 62.36 inches in length, 30.137 inches in width, 17.452 inches in height, and its current mass is approximately 120lbs. We moved forward with a dual motor design, friction brakes that are actuated by our pneumatic system, and an aluminum chassis. Not having SpaceX Competition design requirements to follow, gave our team the freedom to test different designs for each subsystem.