Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

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teriyakiburns said:
People said the same thing about the de Haviland Comet. There'll be inquiries and recommendations for tighter enforcement of regulations, to stop a repeat of the hubris involved.
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Speaking of the de Haviland Comet, and this is slightly off topic, but it's been mentioned that carbon fiber has been used in aerospace frames but has tended to be avoided for submersible frames because of the wear brought on by the constant changes in atmospheric pressure. Well, wouldn't carbon-fiber framed aircraft be facing the same risk, just as the Comet did?
 
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make_it_so said:
Speaking of the de Haviland Comet, and this is slightly off topic, but it's been mentioned that carbon fiber has been used in aerospace frames but has tended to be avoided for submersible frames because of the wear brought on by the constant changes in atmospheric pressure. Well, wouldn't carbon-fiber framed aircraft be facing the same risk, just as the Comet did?
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Someone mentioned a way back in the thread that carbon fibre has great tensile strength, but terrible compressive strength. It's great for aircraft because the pressure difference is pushing outward. In a sub, the pressure is pushing inward, so it crumples like a soggy balloon.

What did in Comet was metal fatigue, which caused cracks to spread from a badly riveted joint. Carbon fibre doesn't suffer that problem because it's made of layered, glued mats of criss-crossing fibres, which prevent cracks from propagating. The most common failure mode for carbon fibre is when those mats de-laminate, which reduces their structural strength and can cause unexpected flexing, but that's generally not something you'd see from the pressure changes an aeroplane would undergo. Maybe from excessive vibration or badly glued layers.
 
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make_it_so said:
Speaking of the de Haviland Comet, and this is slightly off topic, but it's been mentioned that carbon fiber has been used in aerospace frames but has tended to be avoided for submersible frames because of the wear brought on by the constant changes in atmospheric pressure. Well, wouldn't carbon-fiber framed aircraft be facing the same risk, just as the Comet did?
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IIRC the Comet failed due to cyclic stress at a badly designed point causing a crack in the fuselage. These days we understand materials much better and can predict the cycle life and design out early failure.

The same thing applies to CF,, as a material in its optimal use, under tension, it is much easier to predict and model, and allows for a big safety margin without much weight penalty. Aerospace manufacturing is also super high quality, you can be sure they test the shit out of anything new. (And that’s because of past fuckups)

In the submersible case it really seems to be a bad application. The CF hull is in compressive load, at very thick sections where it is unpredictable and difficult to test or ensure consistency., Which gave it a cycle life of like 6 or whatever.
Knowing what we know about Rush, he may have known it was past its safe lifetime and rolled the dice anyway. Or more likely they just didn’t know how to estimate that because they were retards and fired the competent guy.

Edit: good article on how the grifting, reckless startup mentality may have played into this.
 
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RodgerDodger said:
James Cameron is probably the better example. He currently holds the record for deepest submersable dive. His trip to the Challenger Deep. He built a 1 man craft specifically designed for 1 man and 1 trip. Engineered the fuck out of it to make sure it survived. And piloted it himself. So he would be the only one turned to paste. Yeah it's a bit narcisitic. But you gotta give props for being willing to risk only yourself.
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I don't care why but you couldn't pay me enough to do that. Major props to him for doing so though.

Snekposter said:
And yet for how shoddily-built 90% of a Tesla is the batteries don't appear to be any more dangerous than any other giant block of lithium. In fact they may even be slightly safer!
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Still doesn't mean I'd want to buy one.

Elon Musk is a lot of things but I don't trust the man.

Procrastinhater said:
He could have pitched it that "we didn't put in a porthole because we were concerned about customer safety, but we use 60" 4K screens attached to external cameras for a better view than would be possible through a porthole anyway" and then just built something that goes down a couple of hundred feet and sits there for 8 hours, then used remote operated Deep Sea Drones to get up close and stunning footage to be transmitted to the screens on board.
Everyone would have been safe, the customers would have been none the wiser, and he could have made a fortune.
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Yeah but these retards need to say they actually went down there and saw it with their own eyes.

That's the hook. Sure watching it in 4K in the comfort of a yacht while sipping champagne is great. But actually going down there and seeing it through a tiny porthole? Which one is a better story at parties? Remember these people are doing so not only for the experience but for the bragging rights.
 
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A lot of the sub has been recovered.



I haven't been keeping up much with the status of the vehicle, after the implosion what happened to the launch platform? It should still be intact, I assume. What did they typically do with it after the sub undocked?
 
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youtube is recommending me a two year old video, I wonder why....


it would've been even more crushing since down there a pressure difference wouldn't have happened.

all in all, I still don't get the thrill. sitting 8 hours in a metal tube, to watch some poorly lit wreck of a once mighty ship through 4 inches of glass?
 
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ZMOT said:
all in all, I still don't get the thrill. sitting 8 hours in a metal tube, to watch some poorly lit wreck of a once mighty ship through 4 inches of glass?
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it's all about being there and also about doing things that peons like you and I can't do, like go deep underwater, go to space, turn into a extremely fine paste
 
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Toolbox said:

A lot of the sub has been recovered.


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I haven't been keeping up much with the status of the vehicle, after the implosion what happened to the launch platform? It should still be intact, I assume. What did they typically do with it after the sub undocked?
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Damn, I feel like that was a quick recovery. They said they gathered some remains. I'm curious as to what was even left. I'm guessing some paste on the side of some pieces of carbon fiber.
 
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If you listen to James Cameron, it's a combination of things. Historic value, entertainment, technical difficulty, and the willingness to try it. I call it the human condition.
reptile baht spaniard rid said:
it's all about being there and also about doing things that peons like you and I can't do, like go deep underwater, go to space, turn into a extremely fine paste
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make_it_so said:
Speaking of the de Haviland Comet, and this is slightly off topic, but it's been mentioned that carbon fiber has been used in aerospace frames but has tended to be avoided for submersible frames because of the wear brought on by the constant changes in atmospheric pressure. Well, wouldn't carbon-fiber framed aircraft be facing the same risk, just as the Comet did?
Click to expand...
The Comet in its first iteration failed because of a few innovations it pioneered as a commercial airliner: jet engines, pressurized cabin above 25000 feet, and high cruise speeds. The thin fuselage metal was responsible for a lot of the metal fatigue and eventual cracking at the sharp edges of the windows after a certain number of flight cycles. Though de Havilland did some stress testing at the peak pressure points at window edges, their methods for testing were flawed and that resulted in it being underengineered.
 
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make_it_so said:
Speaking of the de Haviland Comet, and this is slightly off topic, but it's been mentioned that carbon fiber has been used in aerospace frames but has tended to be avoided for submersible frames because of the wear brought on by the constant changes in atmospheric pressure. Well, wouldn't carbon-fiber framed aircraft be facing the same risk, just as the Comet did?
Click to expand...
"Well, it's a spaceship, so it can withstand zero to one atmospheres."

-Professor Hubert Farnsworth
 
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Oxyjen said:
Edit: good article on how the grifting, reckless startup mentality may have played into this.
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The sub had several successful ventures before its catastrophic failure, if Stockton had retired earlier and sold his company to someone else he would be considered a successful business-savvy genius and we would all look up to him.
 
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Angry Alt Right Nerd said:
The sub had several successful ventures before its catastrophic failure, if Stockton had retired earlier and sold his company to someone else he would be considered a successful business-savvy genius and we would all look up to him.
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The retard had a safe and successful sub in the Cyclops. He could have made a shit ton of money taking tourists to the Andrea Doria or Brittanic which aren't very far down and then saved up to build a safe spherical tourist sub to take a couple of paying customers to see the Titanic.
 
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