Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I am not much fan of Scify but here it is. It will cost a fortune to built this
Creating an ultra-fast Maglev high-speed train network, allowing passengers to travel from one Chinese metropolis to another in an hour, is the project announced by CASIC on Wednesday at the 3rd Aerospace Trade Summit Currently in Wuhan.
The Chinese national group, specializing in space launchers and missiles, plans to finalize the technological demonstration phase by 2023 on a "mini" experimental network linking three Chinese cities, with prototypes of up to 1,000 km / h .
If these initial commercial trials are successful, with an estimated volume of 8 million passengers per year, CASIC will then begin the second stage and go to challenge the 2,000 km / h bar by 2027, , The speed of 4,000 km / h, 5 times faster than an airliner, or 10 times a conventional TGV.
The project of Maglecv train under Chinese vacuum T-Flight in the future dedicated station (Image: CASIC)
To be able to beat most fighter planes in speed but on the ground, engineers try to avoid any form of "physical contact" between the train and its environment during the "rolling". For this, some technical solutions chosen are identical to those of the Hyperloop project , launched in 2013 by the founder of SpaceX.
Each of the independent trains will circulate, like Hyperloop, in a vacuum tube, whose aerodynamic drag represents only 3% of a conventional TGV. This will also considerably reduce the aerodynamic heating of the structure.
The Chinese metropolis that could be connected by the maglev train under vacuum of CASIC (Image: CASIC)
The highly streamlined train - 35.8 meters long, 2.24 meters high and 2.12 meters wide - will also benefit from CASIC's long experience in the hypersonic field, acquired with the development Super and hypersonic missiles.
The propulsive part will use the concept of magnetic levitation train (Maglev), with superconducting magnets.
Electromagnetic forces are also used to lift the train up to 20 tons, carrying 18 passengers in the single wagon, about 20 mm from the "rails" to avoid mechanical friction, while Hyperloop simply floats on a "cushion" 'air.
It is unclear whether the main TGV manufacturer in China, the CRRC Corporation, which has also launched , is participating in this project, which is almost a competitor to theirs. But CASIC, having virtually no experience in the development of railway assets, is already announcing the formation of an alliance with about 20 organizations, which holds more than 200 patents in the associated technical fields.
With this very ambitious project of which the amount of investment is not made public, CASIC wishes to diversify its activities which are mainly military oriented today.
It also wants to seize the opportunity in this new field because China considers the network of very high-speed trains, whatever the technology, as one of the main catalysts and facilitators to come for its socio-economic development. The Chinese group is also discussing the possibility of exporting or expanding the future network to countries that are part of the One Belt One Road strategy to make this Maglev vacuum train a future Chinese flagship in the international market after Aerospace, TGV and nuclear.
If this Chinese project materializes and reaches its ultimate goal in terms of speed, it will be possible to travel, for example, 1,152 km between Beijing and Wuhan in just 30 minutes, against 5 hours by TGV today. This new "proximity" will therefore profoundly change the way of life of the Chinese of tomorrow.
To be continued.
