Civil engineers will continue to play a key role in the development of the transportation system in the future. Their designs and analyses will be instrumental in developing safe, cost-effective and robust designs. If Hyperloop were to be “the fifth mode of transportation,” civil engineers would help make this happen.
Meet the CAEE engineers who helped with the design process of a Hyperloop pod for Texas Guadaloop, one of UT Austin’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition II teams. The team tested its pod in August at the SpaceX Hyperloop track in Hawthorne, California, along with 23 other international teams. They won an innovation award for their levitation system based on air bearings.
Please explain your role in the Texas Guadaloop Hyperloop pod project.
Sara: My main contribution to the Texas Guadaloop team was creating the initial project management and build plan. Since the pod had a number of different complex, interdependent systems (structures, brakes, pneumatics, sensors…to name a few), it was important to make sure the progress on one system was not impeded by that of another. For example, the steel structure had to be ready before the brakes could be installed, so we used a Lean construction concept called the Last Planner System to come up with the initial plan. I also helped in the beginning of the build process and helped with the structural team.
Ramez: Initially, I helped design the structural frame of the pod. This included finite element analysis to make sure the frame could handle the loads applied from the propulsion and the loads of the pod components. After this, I continued to stay involved through the Design Weekend held at Texas A&M, where we presented our design to SpaceX, and then through the build phase, where I helped with various components, including pneumatics, electronics, and the test track.
Dan: I was primarily involved with the pod's structural design. This included working with Ramez to develop an initial frame concept, building a finite element model that incorporated dynamic loading conditions, designing a truss system that evenly distributed a point load propulsion to the full circumference of the fuselage, and analyzing suspension details alongside those drafting the pod. I also presented our structural design at the original Hyperloop Competition Design Weekend held at Texas A&M.
Ramez and Dan are working on the finite element analysis of the Hyperloop frame. The pod's frame is the most important structure, as all the subsystems mount to it.
How long have you been on the Hyperloop team, and why did you join?
Sara: I was on the Texas Guadaloop team during my last semester at UT (I graduated in May 2016). During the previous year, I traveled to Saudi Arabia to present at the CityQuest’15 summit, and one of the speakers at the summit was Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. After I heard his speech about the vision for a new mode of transportation that may solve a lot of our transportation problems, I knew I had to get involved. Luckily, a few weeks later, Vik Parthiban (now Guadaloop COO!) reached out for volunteers for the Texas Guadaloop team.
Ramez: I’ve been with the Texas Guadaloop team for almost two years now. I joined in October 2015 because it seemed like an opportunity like no other—to create a new mode of transportation that could make rapid travel across long distances a reality. I thought it would be amazing if something that I helped design could one day help solve our transportation issues.
Dan: I was a part of the team from 2015-2016 until I graduated from UT and took a full-time job on the other side of the country. I originally joined the team, first and foremost, because I’m excited about the technology, and I wanted to contribute, even if in a small way, to see it come to fruition. Secondly, I saw an opportunity to practice modeling the dynamic response of a unique structural system. Now that I have been out of school for a year and have gained more experience, I’m sure that I could improve on the design process, but I’m certainly grateful that I challenged myself on the Hyperloop project.
Both of the UT Austin Hyperloop teams have members with varied expertise and backgrounds. Please comment on what it was like working with engineers and other contributors from different disciplines.
Sara: It is amazing how much you could learn just by having a short conversation with any Texas Guadaloop engineer. The team includes engineers, artists, business majors, and more because it takes a team to make this vision a reality.
Ramez: It was a great experience! I learned about components that I’d never thought about before, including mechanical and electrical engineering concepts that I’d previously known very little about. We have students from all types of backgrounds working on the pod, both engineering and not, and my biggest takeaway is that you don’t necessarily need an academic background to contribute to a project like this, just the willingness to learn and work hard. I’ve made great friends through this project and look forward to seeing where this concept goes next.
Dan: It was such an amazing experience. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in on meetings while the mechanical engineers talked about the principles of fluid flow or the electrical engineers presented their plans for installing pod sensors. The project gave me a unique perspective on how brilliant Texas Engineers are in each and every discipline. Watching a team of students with totally different skill sets come together and develop a design for a technology that’s yet to be invented was inspiring. It makes me think of the Texas motto, “What starts here changes the world.” It is more than just branded words. I watched a room full of incredibly bright young engineers leveraging each other’s talents to solve a problem and push forward even after their initial design was not selected for the first Hyperloop competition in 2016. Even if this specific Hyperloop technology isn’t what changes the world, I’m confident the people who worked on this project certainly will.
