he’ll at least hold the record for world’s smallest, full-sized cube.
Titanic tourist submersible missing | Sub's debris found - crew "have been lost"
- Thread starter Solius
- Start date
he’ll at least hold the record for world’s smallest, full-sized cube.
Neither of which happens with “salt water”. The clue is in the second word of the phrase.
I wasn’t saying it did, just being a know it all.
Obviously different bacteria and viruses have evolved to live in saltwater…
That was on the topic of food preservation.
Yes to a degree but sea water is packed with bacteria and viruses.
Looks like one of the aunt/mother are lying about it then because the former clearly said he wasn't looking forward to it.
Also ties in with that billionaire Bloom being offered a late seat at a healthy discount to the original price.
So why would anyone with any scientific knowledge think that carbon fibre reuse under water at that depth is going to work and not implode? Did they think it could work enough times for it to be seen as passable then get more funding?
I’m not sure it’s so nefarious as people are possibly making out.
From everything I’ve read of the guy’s quotes I get the impression he truly believed in his submersible and thought he was an innovator. He took any argument to the contrary as industry player’s attempting to keep the club closed and maintain a status quo. He went on, and piloted, every dive which doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing someone who was being intentionally negligent would do, though I guess he doesn’t have to hire a pilot if he does it himself.
In any event, I think he became so entrenched in being a Musk/Bezos of the deep, and providing a unique experience to those people willing to pay, that he was ignorant to the shortcomings of his submersible. In a sense it’s unforgivable that he caused the deaths of four other people, but also tragic that he died himself. It reminds me of the bloke who accidentally killed himself jumping off the Eiffel Tower when he was testing his parachute invention while trying to win a competition for making flying safer for pilots, being so convinced his invention would work.
The aunt was never a reliable witness, as she used the same interview to talk about a long running feud between her and the kid’s father.
Fairly unreliable then
Very smart people designed it. I'm sure it could work. The maths obviously checked out..
To be fair to the man, he might have been quite casual about many of the systems, but I think he had total faith in the strength of the vessel itself.
Indeed.
" A single liter of seawater has about one billion bacteria and 10 billion viruses.
https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/mic...e liter of seawater,all three domains of life.
I think the design and engineering was strong enough in the first instance but composite materials are well known to degrade over time in seawater, typically because delamination occurs between layers.
You really need to stop swimming by Blackpool Pier. Yes I know you mean normal sea water.
Wreckage of the Titan submersible has been brought ashore.
Human remains have been found somehow
Was reading this on the BBC but how did this happen? Doesn't an implosion leave absolutely no trace or remains given the severity of what takes place?
I guess it depends on what they mean by human remains. They found human remains after the challenger disaster but I'm not sure exactly how much of each person was found. I also assume that when the sub failed it perhaps failed at one end so the other end didn't collapse quite as fast (or something like that) which might have partially protected some bodies from total destruction even thought all would have died instantaneously most likely.
Not to get all morbid but I wonder if things like teeth or small bone particles could have survived the intense heat and/or pressure. Does show a lot of the speculation about it may not be entirely accurate and that perhaps it didn't implode as extreme a depth as initially presumed.
I suspect it is just that if the structure didn't fail in exactly the same way at the same time so that it was very slightly less catastrophic at (say) one end of the submersible than the other. Probably meaningless in terms of instantaneous death though.
Last edited:
The human body is both amazingly fragile and amazingly resilient.
Ex: they also found human remains from the Columbia space shuttle that broke up traveling Mach 18 at an altitude of 63km
I don’t think the pressure would crush any body part that doesn’t have air in it.
I’m surprised that they were able to find any human remains. I’m assuming these are bone fragments as I don’t think a large chunk of the body would remain as is. Add the fact that it’s so far below, finding it is truly amazing from a technology standpoint.
No. The guy was a fkn idiot. This kind of thinking - Oh he's a clever guy and he piloted it himself so it must be ok. Is the thinking that conned the passengers to get on even though deep down they probably were questioning it. The engineering and knowledge is advanced enough to build subs that should never implode. It should be super rare. Proof? None have imploded except Ocean Gate. The big risks are snagging or maybe electric failure or something. Not implosion. The reason why it imploded is not shocking to the industry or any engineer. They saw it coming. This guy had a huge ego or something and just took shortcuts. They could have built and run safe subs but it would cost probably millions per trip. Hence the billionaires thought they could just save a few dollars and wing it.
If you read about Rush, every article says that he was a inveterate risk-taker. He was over-confident, had been extremely successful in his life as a young man and felt that rules were there to be broken.
He shrugged off warnings from people who had a lot more experience than he did. I don't think he thought he'd ever fail.
He shrugged off warnings from people who had a lot more experience than he did. I don't think he thought he'd ever fail.
If anyone is actually interested in the engineering/materials science, I think this article explains the fatigue aspect quite well. https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/technical-faq-bottom-brackets-carbon-fiber-fatigue/
The other thing that has been mentioned as regards the sub is that the windows were only certified down to about 1/3 the depth of where they were diving. Many safety critical things in engineering have a safety factor of 4 or 5 applied (often the case with lifting equipment), but some might only have a safety factor of 1.5 or 2. It's quite possible therefore that if the window had a safety factor of 2 applied between the stress it experienced and its fatigue limit then the extra pressure would exceed its fatigue limit and repeated cycles would eventually cause failure. This might not have been deemed a concern by the manufacturer of the window because they probably thought that anybody with half a brain who knew they had significantly exceeded the rated operating stress would inspect the components for cracks with e.g. an ultrasonic detector, or even just replace it to be on the safe side (like aircraft operators would with structural components).
Finally, I've not seen it mentioned but the sea is very good at corroding things galvanically. Carbon fibre, titanium and stainless steel (I'm assuming the portholes might have had steel frames) all conduct electricity and all have different galvanic potentials so one of them would always corrode preferentially over the others (I'm guessing titanium?). If e.g. the titanium were corroding around the windows then you could have other possible failure modes there. And I believe carbon fibre tends to absorb seawater over time which can accelerate any degradation mechanisms it might have experienced from galvanic corrosion.
All in all I suspect he was an ostensibly clever utter fool. Even just the shape of the sub suggests that to me, never mind the material choices. There is a reason nobody had ever designed a deep sea sub that looked like Starbug from Red Dwarf before.
The other thing that has been mentioned as regards the sub is that the windows were only certified down to about 1/3 the depth of where they were diving. Many safety critical things in engineering have a safety factor of 4 or 5 applied (often the case with lifting equipment), but some might only have a safety factor of 1.5 or 2. It's quite possible therefore that if the window had a safety factor of 2 applied between the stress it experienced and its fatigue limit then the extra pressure would exceed its fatigue limit and repeated cycles would eventually cause failure. This might not have been deemed a concern by the manufacturer of the window because they probably thought that anybody with half a brain who knew they had significantly exceeded the rated operating stress would inspect the components for cracks with e.g. an ultrasonic detector, or even just replace it to be on the safe side (like aircraft operators would with structural components).
Finally, I've not seen it mentioned but the sea is very good at corroding things galvanically. Carbon fibre, titanium and stainless steel (I'm assuming the portholes might have had steel frames) all conduct electricity and all have different galvanic potentials so one of them would always corrode preferentially over the others (I'm guessing titanium?). If e.g. the titanium were corroding around the windows then you could have other possible failure modes there. And I believe carbon fibre tends to absorb seawater over time which can accelerate any degradation mechanisms it might have experienced from galvanic corrosion.
All in all I suspect he was an ostensibly clever utter fool. Even just the shape of the sub suggests that to me, never mind the material choices. There is a reason nobody had ever designed a deep sea sub that looked like Starbug from Red Dwarf before.
Last edited:
I suspect it will be some "matter" rather than anything instantly recognisable, but then again sometimes things do survive brief traumatic events if the circumstances are perfect. It's too early to be certain but there is quite a lot of the rear mechanism that still looks intact and without a lot of deformation.
One report has also mentioned finding a titanium cap without it's viewing port. If that's the front window then it may well be either that failed first, or the carbon fibre cracked towards the front of the vessel, making the pressure wave start at the front rather than through the middle of the vessel.
As @UpWithRivers says, the CEO was clearly a massive Narcissist who felt he was more in the know than established experts. There is "pushing an envelope" with a safety margin and there is just throwing any sort of safety out the window. The use of carbon fibre for the body smacks of a total misunderstanding of the properties of the material. Like all narcissists this guy was highly manipulative...I suspect we will get a PR offensive from Family and Friends of his in the coming weeks trying to defend his actions and watch as they repeat word for word his mantras about "too much safety" ..."Driving a car is risky"
Yes carbon fibre is used in Formula 1, yes it is strong, but any carbon fibre part that is put under anything close to a peak load (from a bump rather than a serious crash) gets replaced. The cost dynamics of this work in F1 because a car design is changing from week to week and there is a chance of catastrophic failure all the time, meaning you will have to replace the part anyway. The only way carbon fibre works is if you have a thoroughly tested tube used each time you dive,
Can’t help wondering why the world needed to know some suspected human matter had been found.
Yup, there's videos of it. Apart from the window missing, its in great condition.
You are missing the point I was making. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was suggesting that the initial design/engineering/build was probably strong enough but carbon fibre's known degradation over time in salt water was ignored.
Isn't that a tautological statement. The design cannot be strong enough because it included carbon fibre and the purpose of the design was to be submerged in....salt water
From what I've read, the design wasn't signed off or considered strong enough, the window wasn't rated for depth and it generally had a target DIY feel.
Thanks for the link.
I sometimes feel certain materials are considered "good" or "space age" (not limited to carbon fibre), and this reputation means people try to shoe horn them in without actually needing them because it sounds good!
It can be strong enough the first time you use it but carbon fibre degrades in seawater, primarily by water ingress/delamination. That doesn't mean I think it was a good idea.
If you asked me to describe my least favorite type of person, who is nonetheless quite common to find in the real world, then this guy would be a very close description of what I'd come up with. It sickens me that his hubris managed to kill 4 others and endanger a bunch more.
This is certain. Almost all road cars that have carbon fibre in them it's basically just for show and rarely forms a significant part of the structure. For one thing it's quite hard to predict how it will behave through life compared to most metals, so while you might find it quite easy to convince yourself that it will last 10 races in a race car, it's much harder to convince yourself it will last 10 years of use and weathering in a road car.
It's cool stuff don't get me wrong but I worked on an outboard motor design with carbon fibre cowling and I believe it is not only heavier than a more typical plastic cowling, and probably degrades slightly from the effect of seawater ingress, I'm told it also has given them problems with glavanic corrosion by electrically connecting metal parts through paths that wouldn't be there with an insulating plastic cowling. And it costs more of course, but it's all about whether it looks and sounds racy to a lot of people I think.
Maybe someone else made this point; the sub had been to these depths already and crew returned safely, on more than one occasion. I’m not defending the owner, but it might explain his (misguided) confidence
Last edited:
Eh wah?
There are plenty of road cars that are full carbon fibre structurally aren't there? McLaren F1 being the first.
I get that, just seems if you're building a submersible for multi-trip use, then including a material that degrades in seawater instantly makes the design moot.