Design aspects

General design philosophy

• high reliability .
• highly modular architecture with a large number of exchangeable standardized off-shelf components, where each component has a known, simple and reliable functionality.

• well defined, standardized and open interfaces.
• easy to maintain, assemble/disassemble , if possible automatically.
• extendibility: the transport network should be extendable qualitatively (with more sophisticated technologies) and quantitatively (network expansion to an arbitrary size).

There are two new aspects concerning the modularity of the systems:

• the composition of well defined modules simplifies the overall system development, design, improvement and maintenance.
• it is expected that the recycling of components of the system will become increasingly important and also cost relevant. A system that pretend to be competitive in the far future needs to take account of these aspects already in the early design considerations. Therefore, the design should include the option that the system and modules can be cost-efficiently assembled and disassembled.

The challenge is to design the system modular on the one hand and compact and light on the other hand.

Comfort criteria

• acceleration at maximum 0.25g for a duration of maximum 1min.
• jerk at maximum 0.2g/s.

• no oscillations in the range of 3 - 10Hz.

For the transport of persons apply the additional criteria:

• temperatures adjustable between $14^\circ$C to $26^\circ$C.
• air pressure at $1\pm0.1$atm.

The comfort criteria are based on E. Anderson [1]. The acceleration g=9.81m/s², and the jerk is defined as the time derivative of acceleration.

Safety criteria

Safety criteria apply in emergency operations.

As a general rule:

serious injuries, directly or indirectly caused by the system, should be physically impossible.

In particular:

• maximum deceleration of 0.5g
  for seated passenger without safety belt.
• temperatures, smoke, and gas should not threaten health or life in the cabin and on escape routes.

The challenge is to design a system such that it is, under some basic assumptions, possible to prove that the system cannot seriously injure people.