The Central Japan Railway Company’s maglev bullet train hit 366 miles per hour yesterday in a test, a record-setting clip that breaks the the 12-year-old landspeed record of 361 mph, the Wall Street Journal reports . Read more…
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America Should Envy This Speed Record-Shattering Japanese Bullet Train
The most inefficient part of a gearing system is also its most vital: the teeth. While they allow the systems to, y’know, work, they also introduce vast quantities of frictional losses and, in turn, mechanical wear—so this new system uses magnetic levitation to do away with them. Read more…
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This Maglev Gearbox Doesn’t Need Teeth
Maglev trains have been promised as the future of public transport since about forever, but high-speed magnetic levitation systems are rapidly gaining a serious reputation — something Japan’s public demonstration of its high-speed maglev system is only going to help. Read more…
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Japan Tests Its New 500kmph Maglev Train
Enclosed tube maglev system capable of 1, 800 mph tested in China pic.twitter.com/moxDumJOY1 http://t.co/MhA25cCYJC — Michael (@_cypherpunks_) May 9, 2014 Read more…
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China’s Maglev Train Prototype Could Reach Speeds of 1,800 MPH
Magnetic levitation is central to the fastest trains we know today, but it’s that dependence on electromagnets and rails that limits how and where it’s used for transportation. Aoyama Gakuin University has a unique alternative: changing the material properties themselves. By floating graphite over a bed of circular magnets, taking advantage of its tendency to generate an opposing magnetic field, researchers can move the graphite just by blasting its edge with a laser. The heat skews the magnetic behavior of that area enough to unbalance the graphite, either in a specific direction or a spin. The research team believes it could lead to maglev transportation or even energy converting turbines that are steered solely by light, with no contact or outside guides: maglev vehicle pilots could have much more control over where they go. Getting to that point will require a much larger scale, but successful development could give technology a very literal lift. Continue reading Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video) Filed under: Transportation , Science , Alt Comments Via: Phys.org Source: JACS
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Magnetically lifted graphite moves by laser, may lead to light-based maglev vehicles (video)
More than a year after the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai) received construction approval to get going on its maglev railways, it has finally unveiled a Series L0 prototype that would put its current bullet train system to shame. Designed to travel at 311 mph, a single one of these high-speed marvels is designed to carry about 16 carriages, which translates to about 1,000 commuters. While Japanese travelers already enjoy a speedy 90-minute trip from Tokyo to Nagoya, this new maglev system promises to cut that journey to just 40 minutes. Announced nearly five years ago , the project has since been extended to include an Osaka-Tokyo leg and will cost around nine trillion yen (approximately $112 billion) when all is said and done. Don’t pack your bags just yet though; the maglev’s Nagoya rail isn’t scheduled to go live until 2027, and the boarding call for Osaka isn’t until 2045. Of course, if you need to ride electromagnetic rails now , there’s always China’s Shanghai Transrapid, which has been ferrying passengers to and fro the Pudong airport since 2004 — it once reached speeds of 501km/h (311mph). China’s even planning a whopping 1,000 km/h vacuum-tube maglev train in just a year or so. Of course, those of us on the other end of the Pacific are still waiting for that long-delayed California-Nevada maglev project to work out. Sigh. Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: Inhabitat Source: Phys.org
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Japan unveils prototype of new maglev train, promises speeds of up to 311 mph