The EuroTube Foundation was founded with the purpose to accelerate the development of sustainable vacuum transportation technologies and to provide publicly accessible research and testing infrastructures for universities and industry. Vacuum transportation is a concept for a new mode of transport where vehicles are levitating in a partial vacuum tube traveling at almost the speed of sound. EuroTube is one of an increasing amount of companies world wide working to bring vacuum transportation to market. EuroTube is going to build the very first European vacuum tube called AlphaTube in Switzerland.

In this thesis a basis is laid for an extensive modeling library containing different models for vacuum transportation applications and linear drives. The library is created using the modeling language Modelica. First models are added to the library with the focus on the thermal domain to design a cooling system for AlphaTube. The two most advanced models created are a single sided linear induction motor (SLIM) model based on an equivalent circuit in a d-aligned dq reference frame and a one dimensional discretised thermal capacity model with vehicle-covering function. The SLIM model is extended by an indirect field oriented controller (IFOC) optimised for high speed LIMs in order to follow a specified trajectory. The vehicle-covering function is a wave function that moves along with the vehicle and evaluates the coverage of each non-moving capacity element.

With the help of parameter variations on the AlphaTube system model a cooling concept was developed. The proposed cooling system consists of three individual water circuits, each cooling another part of the track. As refrigerant in the circuits water from the nearby river (Rhône) is used. The most efficient cooling is achieved if water as cold and as close as possible is available at the heat sources leading to large temperature gradients between sources and refrigerant.