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How do you make a floating transatlantic rail, if you pump the air out of it?
watching the science channel I can't get past the question of floating bridge and vaccum.?!
Yes, but the mass of air is less than that of water, thus floats. If you remove the air, does it float. Then they brought up the subject of fire in the tube. If you are in a vaccum could you just empty the car that has a fire and decopress? That would snuff out the fire, Wright?
2 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Air, in case you didn't know has mass and therefore adds weight, albeit not a lot. They probably want the train to run in a vacuum to reduce aerodynamic drag so it can go faster and/or use less power.
Responding to your addendum :
I believe I saw a show on the subject some time ago now.
As I remember, the whole thing is not meant to float on the surface, but be submerged under a depth of water to allow ships to pass over the top so they do not have to go around anything. The tunnel either has positive buoyancy and is held down by cables or it has the sort of buoyancy control submarines use to stay at the proper depth.
Fires in the tunnel itself can be prevented by not having oxygen present but the train is meant to carry passengers so having 1 atm. pressure breathable inside air would be a necessity. Yes letting the air out could snuff out an inside fire but that is just not an option. There are less drastic fire suppression methods.
One more thing, the train running in this tunnel is supposed to go faster than jet-planes. Just hope it never derails in there.
