New evidence strongly suggests that OceanGate’s submersible, which imploded and killed all passengers on its way to the Titanic wreck, was unfit for the journey. The CEO, Stockton Rush, bought discounted carbon fiber past its shelf life from Boeing, which experts say is a terrible choice for a deep-sea vessel. This likely played a role in the submersible’s tragic demise.

  • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I don’t see where it fits as a good solution either. Typically it’s used where weight is the main consideration, such as in aircraft. CF is more expensive, has higher maintenance cost, and more difficult to produce than metal. Was it more about doing something different than doing it better? Well the tried an true method for deep sea submarines is a titanium sphere and that’s quite expensive so it probably was a lot cheaper.

    • Piramic@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      In his scenario weight was a factor.

      They were trying to get the sub to be as light as possible so it could be operated from nearly any vessel. The goal was to have the sub and a launch sled that could be launched and recovered aboard a rented ship. This was all to save money; they didn’t want to have to purchase and outfit a special purpose support vessel.

      • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think the design was flawed from the start, proper stress testing would have revealed it. From what I understand they basically sent it down a few times and said all good, we’re done.

        The sub did have titanium front and rear bulkheads. If their goal was to make it cheap and light, they might have done better hatching together a train of CF spheres. A cylinder is not strong enough.

        Though to be fair, even the best design with the most rigorous testing can fail catastrophically. If that weren’t the case space flight would carry no risk. And space is easier to deal with than the pressure at 4km ocean depth. Still that doesn’t change my opinion of Rush, he was a hack.

        • IllegallyBlonde@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          Even worse, in the only third party testing that was performed, by the University of Washington, they rated the original iteration of the Titan only up to 9800 ft. As far as I can tell, Oceangate never redesigned the sub after that, and still decided to take people to 13,000 ft.

          Also, given that Rush would brag about how cheap the original hull was, I doubt they fully replaced it when they noticed cyclic fatigue in the sub later. To me it looks like they did some kind of shoddy repair. And that’s the Titan everyone ended up with.

          • rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            Also, given that Rush would brag about how cheap the original hull was

            I’ve seen some short interview clips with him and it seemed like he was proud of how cheaply and recklessly he was doing shit. I’d only have to talk to the guy for five minutes and make up my mind I’m not getting near anything he’s doing. Those ill-fated tourists had conversations with him a lot longer than that.

        • fuser@quex.cc
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Reminiscent of these clowns and their deadly water slide

          At 169 feet tall, Verrückt was the tallest waterslide in the world. Riders plummeted down the nearly vertical 17-story chute—taller than Niagara Falls—at speeds up to 70 miles per hour. German for “insane,” Verrückt was designed to challenge the laws of physics. Visitors flocked to Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, to experience its thrill.

          That is, until August 7, 2016, when the raft that 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was riding went airborne and hit a metal pole supporting a safety net, resulting in his decapitation and instant death.

          Nathan Truesdell, a filmmaker from nearby Missouri, heard about the devastating incident on the news. “My first thought was that it must have been a freak accident—what a horrible, horrible story,” Truesdell told me. “But once I took a closer look, I started to realize how complicated this story really was, and how this could have happened to anyone who went down that slide.”

          The story, it turned out, was one of gross negligence, lax state regulations, and the consequences of hubris. Truesdell’s chilling short documentary The Water Slide, premiering on The Atlantic today, uses news and promotional footage to depict the ill-conceived project and its tragic fallout.

        • Piramic@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The design was definitely flawed from the start. The carbon fiber is not a good material to use for repeated stress cycling. Each time the carbon fiber compresses it causes tiny fractures in the resin. They basically made a one-time use sub as each time it was used the carbon fiber became weaker. There was no way to test how weak it had become because testing it would further weaken it.