Elon Musk's Boring Company to build O'Hare-downtown tunnel

[MARC Rider]

Musk seems to be promising everything to everybody.

Sounds like an Illinois politician!

Sounds like a politician from every state in the union and every country on earth (and probably every planet in the universe that has politicians.)

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Musk seems to be promising everything to everybody.

Sounds like an Illinois politician!

Sounds like a politician from every state in the union and every country on earth (and probably every planet in the universe that has politicians.)

Politicians lie, cheat, and scheme because that's the sort of person who is drawn to high risk/reward propositions and because that's the sort of attitude which convinces millions of low effort casual voters to support you. Any political system worth supporting must account for and mitigate against this.

 

[cirdan]

The technique used then was to maintain a higher air pressure in the tunneling shield. Of course that didn't totally stop ingress , just slowed it down, but they also had pumping machines to move that water out.

That's fine while you're digging the tunnel, but the point of a hyerloop is that the finished tube is evacuated and the train runs in a vacuum. I suppose you can seal the finished tube pretty well, but no engineered structure is perfect, so I'm not sure how this is going to be any better than a conventional subway with express stops.

You could build the tunnel with a double wall. the outer wall would be concrete and its job would basically be to support the surrounding soil. Although it would be as watertight as possible, som inflow might occur. Remember that any water ingress implies there is a water current outside the tunnel which in turn means erosion of the surrounding soil which could in the long term create cavities and destabilize the soil. So ingress should be minimized not just for nuisance reasons but to assure the long term intergrity of the tunnel.

Water ingress would be colected in a channel on the tunnel floor and pumped out.

Then within that outer tunnel there would be an inner pipe made of steel or polymer segments joined in an airtight manner.A bit like you would do for a water or gas or oil pipeline. Water ingress ito that inner tunnel would be minimal. Space between outer and inner tunnel would be sufficient to allow the passage of inspection robots.

Possibly that space could also be used for cables, service piping etc. This would require service entrances at regular intervals. The easiest way to do this would be through doors from the inner tunnel that can be used at times the hyperloop is shut down.

 

[cirdan]

A good chance that the privately-funded project goes belly-up and the public sector is left holding the bag.

This, unfortunately is what I fear.

Which may mean spending money for decades to come on mainaining a flawed system. Money that could have been better spent on the existing system.

 

[cpotisch]

The technique used then was to maintain a higher air pressure in the tunneling shield. Of course that didn't totally stop ingress , just slowed it down, but they also had pumping machines to move that water out.

Sure, but the exact point of the Hyperloop's tube is for it to be a near vacuum. So maintaining high air pressure in that tube to keep the water out probably wouldn't be the best idea in this (hypothetical) case.

 

[Trogdor]

The technique used then was to maintain a higher air pressure in the tunneling shield. Of course that didn't totally stop ingress , just slowed it down, but they also had pumping machines to move that water out.

Sure, but the exact point of the Hyperloop's tube is for it to be a near vacuum. So maintaining high air pressure in that tube to keep the water out probably wouldn't be the best idea in this (hypothetical) case.

To be clear, what's being proposed for this O'Hare link isn't hyperloop. It's basically electric vans in a tunnel.

 

[cpotisch]

The technique used then was to maintain a higher air pressure in the tunneling shield. Of course that didn't totally stop ingress , just slowed it down, but they also had pumping machines to move that water out.

Sure, but the exact point of the Hyperloop's tube is for it to be a near vacuum. So maintaining high air pressure in that tube to keep the water out probably wouldn't be the best idea in this (hypothetical) case.

To be clear, what's being proposed for this O'Hare link isn't hyperloop. It's basically electric vans in a tunnel.

I 100% know that. That's why I said "in this (hypothetical) case."

 

[NorthShore]

After seeing that map, I'm excited. Elon Musk is bringing back the #41 bus! (And the #40 to boot)