Reply to Tourist submersible missing on visit to Titanic

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pardon me if this has already been answered, but didn’t this vessel survive previous dives to the Titanic?  How many trips had it been on? I’m surprised an accident had not happened sooner. What made this trip different where the materials were insufficient to handle the pressure that it was able to handle on previous dives?[/quote]

This was its third trip.  Any number of things could have gone wrong, and it had experienced problems on previous trips.  With every dive, the protective materials get weaker from the pressure.[/quote]

No, not third. I think at least 5th. 
It’s called materials fatigue, or simply wear and tear from the immense water pressure so deep in the ocean on a material that was not safe to spend many hours there. [/quote]

This is what I find most staggering about this entire situation. Rush and especial PH had to know the physics behind the sub and that the materials wouldn't hold up after so many dives. Why would he deny testing of the hull to find # x failure rate? Saving money? Seems having a certification would have garnered him more respect in the diving community and more business.[/quote]

Science is about probabilities.

Most of the community thought this material was too risky (based upon earlier work). This guy disagreed, and took great pride in "breaking rules."

So, that hubris made him think he could defy physics I guess. [/quote]

As a real engineer, whatever that means, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with carbon fiber. However, as far as I know, this is a rather novel application. How you measure fatigue and defects would be a huge unknown. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the carbon fiber was too thick to ultrasonically scan for internal defects. [/quote]

How would you attach the titanium cap to the carbon fiber body? An epoxy of some sort is all I can think of. Not great for going to an environment with 6,000 psi![/quote]

From what I saw of the construction, it was somewhat clever. They had a titanium ring with a grove to receive the carbon fiber tube epoxied to the ends of the tube. Pressure would make it seal tighter. However, you would want to make sure there are no voids in that bond or it will flex and distort relative to the rest of the ring [/quote]

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