HYPERLOOP CFD Analysis

Objective
To calculate aerodynamic load on the pods at its top speed, find out where flow
separation occurs, observe the shocks formed and to optimize the exterior shape of
the pod.
Problem physics
Since pure vacuum is not feasible to produce the tubes are maintained at 100 Pa
pressure and a temperature of 300K by using pumps.
In reality the pod accelerates to its top speed of 760 mph in one minute. However
for the simulation I have assumed the pod accelerates to its top speed of 760mph
instantaneously at start time of analysis. The pod aerodynamics is studied without
considering the effect of compressor intake for now. The air in front of the pod which
tries to flow through the bypass area ( between pod and tube ) gets choked. This air
is accumulated in front of the pod thereby increasing pressure in the front of the
pod(the pod acts like a piston compressing the air in front of it).The air which
manages to pass through the bypass expands when it reaches the back of the pod
reaching supersonic speeds. Adding a compressor intake at the front can reduce the
effect but cannot eliminate the problem of air accumulation at the front due to the
design constraints of an intake system.
Tube dimensions (in inches) are as given below

Computational domain
Computational domain as modeled in CATIA. This is a case of pod without an intake.
Only half of the tube and pod is modeled by taking symmetry into account.

Meshing
Unstructured tetra/prism mesh using Delauney method. Refinements are made only
in the boundary layers and in the wake region. Prism layers are used at the
boundaries.
First the mesh was generated using Octree method and then Delauney method was
used later generate the final mesh using the former mesh.

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
The wall boundaries apart from the pod itself are moving with the velocity of the
pod in a frame of reference attached to the pod. The pod is aligned along the Z-axis
longitudinally and velocity of pod is in the positive Z-direction.

Dynamic Gradient Adaptive Mesh

CONCLUSION
All the iterations in each time step was converged.
Only 1.0e-3 seconds of flow was simulated.