Pressure.

Pressure is one of the most vital factors in the development and engineering of the
Hyperloop. According to my research, the tube will stretch over hundreds of kilometres and will
essentially have to carry the entire weight of the atmosphere around it. Approximately this will be
around 10,000 kg per meter squared and over the entire course of over 600 km and a surface area of
4 million meters squared, the Hyperloop will experience an insane crushing force of around 40
billion kilograms of force over its entire surface. That’s why an extremely small compromise could
result in disaster as a small tear or puncture would allow air in, and this air would destroy the tube
by filling the void almost immediately at supersonic speeds, to equalise the pressure gradient. At just
3 PSI air can cause enough damage to end human life and in the case of the Hyperloop, air would be
let in at 15 PSI, fatal is an understatement.

My solution would be to add vents throughout the track, in case of a breach in order to repressurise
the whole track. The vents would have to be made of similar material as the tube in order to
withstand the atmospheric pressure from outside. The vents will be automated to react to the
volume flow rate of the air rushing in by mirroring it. Which means the flow of air coming in through
the breach will be the flow of air going out. Even though this means the pod comes to a standstill,
it’s a direct safety feature that will save lives. Moreover, we should use high precision absolute
pressure gauges every km or so to be able to record pressure changes and react instantly to any
foreseeable disaster.

One solution is to add vents that could repressurise the tube before a system failure, but even this
requires a lot of additional parts that could increase the risk of failure by itself. My solution is to
create an external chamber around the main tube, to be able to protect it. This external layer would
be made of similar material but not as strong as the internal tube.

Tube use high precision absolute pressure gauges every km or so, in order to record pressure
changes and react instantly to any foreseeable catastrophe. In order for this to work though, the
Hyperloop will require escape routes and points of access. Engineers should be allowed access to the
tube at certain points to critically analyse situations and work on