Instructions: -

➢ The following passage attempts to explain a recently developed revolution in

technology. Do visit the links at the beginning to read more about it!
➢ This paper is meant for students of class 10. For papers of other classes, do visit the
following links: -
o Class 9
o Class 11
o Class 12
o Our official website: http://www.bits-apogee.org/aarohan2020
➢ Read the passage carefully, it contains all the necessary details for solving the
questions that follow it.
➢ The questions will be based on Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Analytical
Skills.
➢ The questions can test your understanding of one or more of the above subjects at
once.
➢ Each of the questions have only one correct alternative. The marking scheme is
o +3 -> Correct Answer
o +1 -> Un-attempted Question
o 0 -> Incorrect Answer
➢ Some useful facts: Atomic Masses of Elements—H-1, C-12, N-14, O-16, Ar-40. You
can assume that the Earth’s atmosphere has 0.03 % CO2 gas and 78 % N2 gas.
➢ Before you start this exam, calm down and remind yourself that: You can Crack
this!
➢ Best of Luck!!

Hyperloop: Revolutionizing Transport!

Read more at:

https://phys.org/news/2015-07-elon-musk-high-speed-hyperloop-mars.html#jCp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain

http://cds.cern.ch/record/455985/files/p291.pdf

An Introduction

Elon Musk – of SpaceX and Tesla Motors fame – recently proposed the "Hyperloop," a
new mode of transportation that moves freight and people quickly, safely, on-demand and
directly. Passengers or cargo are loaded into the Hyperloop vehicle and accelerate gradually
via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube.
How this awesome stuff works! :-

The vehicle (composed of capsule shaped carriers) floats above the track using magnetic
levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low air resistance. The
Hyperloop train can achieve speeds of up to 1000 Km/h (at least twice or thrice that of
the current maglev trains). Achieving such high speed is very challenging and so if you want
to go fast, you've got to deal with all the things that want to slow you down. Two big things
are having to push yourself through the air and having to deal with the friction between you
and the road or rails or whatever you’re traveling on. Hyperloop deals with both of these at
once in a neat way.

How the problems are dealt with: -

First, let's talk about air. If you travel quickly, air piles up in front of you. The faster you go,
the more the air piles up in front and the more resistance you get, which means you have to
push even harder. And it's not what the physicists call a "linear effect". The faster you go, the
worse it is to work against. Bumping up your speed from 10 MPH to 20 MPH doesn't take
nearly as much effort as bumping it up from 110 MPH to 120 MPH. Okay then, the solution
is to get rid of as much air as possible- so we make a vacuum! A vactrain (a train running
through almost perfect vacuum) wouldn’t have the friction and atmospheric drag of a regular
train or a train in a tube full of air. But it’s hard to get rid of that much air and create a perfect
vacuum. Okay, Timeout. So, let us first understand how we measure and understand vacuum:
The amount of air in the Hyperloop tube is measured using the ratio of air pressure in the tube
to normal atmospheric pressure. So, if the air pressure is 1% of normal atmospheric pressure,
that implies a 99% perfect vacuum (nearly perfect). The air is pumped out of the tube to
achieve these nearly-vacuum-like conditions.

Right so, let’s move on. Pumping a system down to 1% of atmospheric pressure is hard but
doable. Pumping down to 0.1% is harder. Pumping to 0.001% is really hard. You have to
get more and more expensive pumps, and because air is wanting to rush back into your tube,
any leak or crack will kill your vacuum. Musk’s approach with Hyperloop falls in between.
Instead of pumping out all of the air, he wants to pump out most of it, letting a little bit remain.
He's talking about keeping the tube at about 0.1% of atmospheric pressure. That's still a lot of
air in the tube, though. It'll still pile up in front of the Hyperloop car, until you've got a column
of air in front of the car that fills the tube and acts like the piston in a car. You’re right back to
having a lot of friction between the air and the tube, which will suck energy out of the system
and keep the cars from going very fast. Musk deals with that in a pretty clever way. He mounts
a fan on the front of the Hyperloop car to suck that column of air into the car. That reduces air
buildup and keeps it from hitting the point where there's a plug of air in front of the car slowing
it down. Some of that air goes out the back of the Hyperloop car and through a rocket nozzle
in a highly-engineered fart some of it is stored, some of it makes the car float.
The second problem you get with high-speed transport is friction between you and the road,
where "road" can be an actual road or rails or cushiony magnetic field. Steel wheels on rails
produce a lot of friction and heating. Maglev trains get around that by having the trains float
on a magnetic field. There are magnets in the track and magnets in the train that repel each
other. Hyperloop would use "air bearings". It would float on a cushion of air like the way
hovercraft do, or how the puck floats over an air hockey table. Some of that air would come
from the air being scooped up in front of the car. Energy consumption: The Hyperloop doesn't
just run on power; it can potentially put power back into the grid thanks to solar panels and
the onboard fan. It claims to have no carbon emission at all!

Details of a Hyperloop Working Model: -

In one of the models, passenger-only capsules are to be 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) in diameter, and a

length of 20 m and projected to reach a top speed of 750 mph (about 1,206 km/h) to maintain
aerodynamic efficiency. The design proposes passengers experience a maximum
acceleration of 0.5 g (5 m/s2), about 2 or 3 times that of a commercial airliner on take-off and
landing!

Hyperloop on Mars!

According to Musk, Hyperloop would be useful on Mars as no tubes would be needed

because Mars' atmosphere is about 1% the density of the Earth's at sea level. This, along with
the composition of Mars’ atmosphere, tells us that the atmospheric pressure at Mars’ surface
is 0.006 times of that of earth. This can enable a Hyperloop Project on Mars too! Given below
is a graph representing the atmospheric composition of Mars.

A Basic Diagram of the Hyperloop-One© Capsule. Hyperloop-One© and HTT© are currently
working on Hyperloop Projects.
 Mars' Atmospheric Composition
120
96
Percentage Composition
100

80

60

40

20
1.9 2 0.1
0
CO2 N2 Ar Other
Gas

Atmospheric Composition of Mars.

The Questions: -
Q1. Assuming that the maximum acceleration experienced is the constant acceleration of the
capsule, find out the time taken and the distance covered by the capsule till it reaches the
top speed.

A. 1 min 7 sec., 11.22 km

B. 1 min 17 sec., 15.78 km
C. 1 min 7 sec., 15.78 km
D. 1 min 17 sec., 11.22 km

Q2. In a hypothetical situation, if the “linear effect” works, then which of the following would
be true in that case?

A. Increasing the speed from 10 MPH to 20 MPH takes nearly as much effort as increasing it
up from 110 MPH to 120 MPH.

B. Increasing the speed from 10 MPH to 20 MPH takes more effort than increasing it up
from 110 MPH to 120 MPH.

C. Increasing the speed from 10 MPH to 20 MPH takes less effort than increasing it up from
110 MPH to 120 MPH.

D. I cannot conclude any of the above from the given data.

Q 3. If the capsule can be thought of as two quarter spheres at either end and half a cylinder
(i.e., a cylinder cut perpendicular to its circular face) in between, what is its volume in cubic
metres, approximately (π=22/7)?

A. 84.74

B. 63.71

C. 21.43

D. 42.37

Q 4. Consider the hyperloop pod to be equipped with solar panels on it covering an area of
2m^2. Only 60% of the is effectively generating energy from the sun at a time. The energy
generated is 400 KJ per m2 per hour and is consumed at 320 KJ/hr. How much time will the
pod run in the night?

(Assuming it ran 10 hours in the day)

A. 150 min

B. 75 min

C. 100 min

D. 300 min

Q 5. Suppose you make a tube, fill it with air and your railway car, and then push both the air
and the car through the tube at the same speed. In this case, which of the following is true?

A. Both the problems (air resistance and friction) will be removed.

B. Friction will be acting along the rough walls of the tube.

C. Friction with the walls and tracks will both exist.

D. There will be no contribution to resistance from air, but track friction will exist.

Q 6. Suppose we build vacuum tubes at Mars too. A pump is used to make the air pressure
0.1%, to that of atmosphere, inside the tube. Another pump is used to do the same on Earth.
Which of the following is true in this case?

A. The pump on Mars uses more energy, since the pressure there is already less, and we
reduce it further.

B. The pump on Earth takes more energy since the pressure difference between inside
and outside is higher.
C. Both pumps take similar energy, since the ratio of initial and final pressure is same in
both.

D. The pump on Mars takes more energy, since the end pressure inside the tube is much
lower than that in the tube on Earth.

Q 7. Statement 1: The atmospheric pressure applied by CO2 gas on earth’s surface is about
5.21 times greater than that applied by CO2 on Mars’ surface.

Statement 2: The percentage contribution of a gas in a planet’s atmospheric composition is

equal to its percentage contribution in pressure exerted by that atmosphere on the surface
of the planet.

Based on these statements, which of the following is true?

A. If Statement 2 is true, Statement 1 has to be true

B. If Statement 1 is true, then Statement 2 is certainly not true
C. If Statement 2 is false, Statement 1 has to be true.
D. We cannot conclude anything about truth of one statement from the other.

Q8. Consider a 300 kg hyperloop having an initial kinetic energy of 60 kJ at point P. The
pod goes to some point Q, stops due to the pressure of the air column in front of it and
returns back. What will be the velocity of the pod at the point P while returning? (consider
no loss of energy due to friction, Hint: easiest question of the passage)

A. 15m/s

B. 25m/s

C. 60m/s

D. 20m/s

--------------------------------------END OF SAMPLE PAPER--------------------------------------

 Hints and Solutions: -

1) (A) Max experienced acceleration, a=0.5g=5m/s2, which is const acceleration

of capsule
Top speed=750 mph=1206 kmph=335 m/s
Initial velocity, u=0
v=u+at => t=v/a=67 sec=1 min 7 sec
s=ut+0.5at2 => s=0.5*5*67*67=11222.5 m or 11.22 km
2) (A) If ‘linear effect’ works, then the same increase in speeds should require
almost similar energies/efforts
3) (D) diameter=2.24 m => r=1.12 m
Length, l=20 m
Total volume= 2*vol of quarter sphere + vol of half cylinder
= 2*1/3*π*r3 + ½* π *r2*h
= 42.37 m3
4) (D )Total effective energy generated per hour= (60/100)*400*2 kJ/hr = 480
kJ/hr
So, total effective energy generated per day=480*10=4800 kJ
Let x be time in hours for which pod runs in night.
So, pod runs for a total of (10+x) hours with 4800 kJ energy available.
Now, energy consumption rate=320 kJ/hr
So, 4800=320*(10+x), giving x=5 hrs=300 min
5) (D) As the air and the car are being pushed at the same speed, there will be
little or no interaction between them, and hence no resistance posed by the
air. However, track friction will exist due to lack of relative motion between the
air and the car, which would have otherwise allowed the car to float on the
track.
6) (A) As seen in the given passage, the atmospheric pressure on Mars is much
smaller than that on earth. Also, lower the pressure, the more difficult it gets
to pump out air. So, pump on Mars would use more energy.

7) (A) Let us assume Statement 2 is true, because it appears to be a generalised

property of nature (it is not a special case for CO2 gas or N2 gas,etc.); Then,
from the given data in the passage: Let us say Atmospheric pressure on Earth
is x, so pressure due to CO2 on Earth is 0.03x, and on Mars it is 0.006*0.96*x =
0.00576x, and the ratio is 5.21 approx. This means Statement 1 is correct if
Statement 2 is correct (not the other way round). Now, if we assume
Statement 1 is true, then we cannot conclude whether or not it is due to
Statement 2 or because of some other scientific reason, so B is wrong.
 Similarly, if Statement 2 is false, we cannot conclude whether or not Statement
1 is true.

8) (D) m=300 kg, KE(P)=60 kJ

Now, this entire system is similar to a spring, ie, at point Q, all of its KE is
converted to PE(no energy losses). So, when it comes back to P, it will have the
same kinetic energy as before.
So, ½*m*v2=KE => v=20 m/s

----------------------------------END OF HINTS/SOLUTIONS----------------------------------