James Cameron, director of the Titanic film, once dove in a submersible to the deepest point in the ocean. So he has connections within the community of submersible designers. Regarding the loss of the Titan, Cameron gave an interview in which he said that he had heard second hand reports from people in the Titan support crew who said that the vessel encountered problems, aborted its dive, dropped ballast, and was attempting to ascend at the moment of the implosion. So the people on board knew what was happening, they probably heard sounds of the hull beginning to strain, although the implosion itself would have been instantaneous.
By all accounts, carbon fiber doesn’t “strain”. It does its thing great right up until it fails catastrophically.
Which is why they used acoustic sensors to monitor the carbon fiber’s integrity instead of strain gauges. They absolutely would have had warning.
Was the hull made purely of carbon fiber?
The hull consisted of a carbon fiber tube with titanium endcaps, one of which served as a door (which could not be opened from inside) and contained the porthole.
I watched this that shows the making of the hull. So it seems that it’s carbon fibre over a metal cylinder. I don’t know if that cylinder is titanium but it doesn’t seem like the hull was pure carbon fibre. That cylinder is nowhere near thick enough for anything but the base for the carbon fibre though so it’s not like it would offer anything but squish in an emergency. But I did find this very interesting (and terrifying somehow):
I’ll be damned, you’re right, the carbon fiber was wound around a metal tube. My bad.
Hmmm… still not sure…
The Titan Tragedy—A Deep Dive Into Carbon Fiber, Used for the First Time in a Submersible
OceanGate shows a metal tube around which the carbon fiber filament is wound but it may be a mandril removed after hardening of the composite.
The tube section was carbon fiber only, no metal. The endcaps were titanium. Many thanks for the link, I will take a look!
The Titan Tragedy—A Deep Dive Into Carbon Fiber, Used for the First Time in a Submersible
*No hull monitoring system was needed during a April 2019 dive when Karl Stanley, submersible expert, took the Titan to 12,000 ft off the coast of the Bahamas. Stanley heard a cracking noise and urged Rush to cancel that summer’s dives to see the Titanic, reported the New York Times. *
Still better than being stuck in there for four days as their air supply ran out, which is what people thought might have happened before the wreckage was found.
I did not suggest that the scenario that I described was the worst case scenario. Another possibility was that the craft could have gotten turned on its end, e.g. after getting snagged on the wreck, or on other debris. Imagine five people piled on top of each other in a vertical tube asphyxiating over four days.
I just dont get the point of putting your body down there. if most of what you’re seeing is through the digital displays anyway, why not just send a drone and watch remotely? seems like an awful massive risk and expense to try and actually dive down there for nothing more than looking out a window
Humans do lots of crazy things. Why do people like to jump out of airplanes for example?
Why do we smoke cigarettes?
These are the external parts. None of the pressure hull other than the end caps survived the incident.
honestly, it’s a lot more intact than I thought
I’m no expert but I think we’re looking at parts of the vehicle which were outside the pressure hull. Those parts would not have been subjected to such extreme forces when the hull failed.
Most bits of a DSV are actually outside of the pressure hull, just look at the designs of Trieste or Limiting Factor. This is to maximize the space available to human passengers inside the relatively small (and very expensive to construct) hull.
Also little cleaner than what I was expecting granted it’s probably been cleaned up from wild life and the recovery crew but still I was expecting a little bit of blood like I’m not even trying to be a gore loving weirdo I just know that humans are basically balloons full of blood and implosions are really violent especially at that depth this sub went to
Now I’m generally curious now that can see the it. That thing is pretty much like a crushed soda can. What really happens to the bodies tho? At depth, The tube goes poof and implodes in milliseconds but do the bodies implode too or they just crushed in the pop can.
That depends on what happened. If the whole structure collapsed instantly, they are probably crushed by debris and a shockwave. But if there was a “leak” and the pressure equalized without complete destruction maybe the lungs are compressed, ribs broken and eardrums torn. All depending on the speed of equalization. Maybe also bones break (because water is compressible) but the bag of meat and blood should remain intact. So finding a body would help to reconstruct what happened. But I doubt they will find one before hungry animals do.
Not possible for anything but immediate implosion at those depths. Even a microscopic leak would instantly turn into a beach.
Why? What should lead to that?
Even a microscopic leak would instantly turn into a beach.
I love the beach!
I read that from the compression the air ignites so they probably burnt to ashes in milliseconds.
But I might got it wrong.I don’t know if that kind of temperature lasts more than microseconds, so that might not be enough time for much combustion to happen.
In any case, the forces from a 300 atm pressure differential would mash the people to goo in the blink of an eye. Like being inside an exploding bomb. Except exploding in. They’re fish food.
EDIT: There are reports that the Coast Guard recovered “presumed human remains”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/28/titan-sub-debris-implosion-wreckage-oceangate
What could possibly be left of them after that implosion?
The bodies can’t implode; the lungs can/will collapse but that is pretty much the least of the issues. Even if the bodies aren’t pulverized by the collapsing sub, the water will hit like a hammer traveling at supersonic speeds. So probably a combination of rendering into mincemeat, dismemberment, and scattering of the human remains would result from such an implosion. A destruction on par with being hit by a bomb at ground zero.
They would’ve been instantaneously turned to ash. The vessel temperature at the time of breach would be about 5000 celsius. About the temperature of the sun. Whatever was left would be oozed out the cracks like play-doh
Keep in mind that the balloon of blood in this case is being crushed by water. Any blood wouldn’t have hit the walls as much as diluted in many gallons of water. Without a chance to deposit and dry, blood doesn’t really “paint” things.
The pieces shown in these photos are the metal parts. The bit that was most likely to break up was the cylindrical carbon fibre hull, and there are no pieces of that in evidence here. The acrylic window is also missing from the front piece.
This diagram shows that the white bits are a glass fiber shell
https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/composite-submersibles-under-pressure-in-deep-deep-waters
It’s not part of the pressurized system so there’s really nothing to rip it to pieces. Definitely no sign of the carbon fiber parts.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush says the company had been evaluating the potential of using a carbon fiber composite hull since 2010, primarily because it permits creation of a pressure vessel that is naturally buoyant and, therefore, would enable OceanGate to forgo the use — and the significant expense — of syntactic foam on its exterior. So, for Cyclops 2 OceanGate decided to avoid the metallic hull altogether and began a search for a manufacturer that could help it develop a composite hull.
Once again the motive for the choice of carbon fibre seems to have been its relative cheapness.
And he still charged $250k…
To be fair, I’m sure each trip out there was very expensive to run. They would have costs for the boat, the fuel, the maintenance, and a full crew with specialist skills.
I’m just reading and watching news interviews with experts so I’m just armchairing here, but It looks like the parts that survived are titanium bits that is what certified submersibles also use, except they usually is spherical in shape. I imagine the tube bit that’s made with carbon fibre where they housed the passengers is the bit that is so torn up that it’s unrecoverable
🪦R.I.P.
Regardless of where one falls on the “it’s gross to gloat over any person’s death” ↔️”lol let’s put more billionaires at the bottom of the ocean” spectrum, it’s pretty damn disturbing to imagine human beings aboard that contraption, thousands of feet below the surface. What a misbegotten, miserable, wasteful endeavor.
Some points:
The occupants did not incinerate. The water temperature and the massive amount of water compared to the air would have overwhelmed any temperature spike from the implosion.
There are no bodies. There is a good chance the occupants were reduced to small bits and jelly as they were ejected from the initial breach along with the air.
They will never find any significant remains. The implosion happened 1.5 hours into a 2 hour descent. Any body parts that remained identifiable would have drifted far from where the largest and heaviest pieces of the submersible settled.
Any body parts that remained identifiable would have drifted far from where the largest and heaviest pieces of the submersible settled.
They also would likely have been quickly consumed by sea fauna. Circle of life.
This is sad for humans, but it’s nature.
I’m inclined to agree with you on this - sometimes, rumors get exaggerated.
The Guardian article I linked above says the Coast Guard recovered “presumed human remains” - though I’d think it would be hard to recognize much of anything exposed to that much force. A few bits of snarge, I’m guessing.
Can anyone explain why they would bother?
To try and prevent something similar in the future.
While it’s obvious that it failed because they ignored safety regulations and certifications that are in place for a reason, it is still important to prove with physical evidence so they know 100% without a doubt. This would officially serve as a warning to other egotistic innovator wannabes who want to cut corners.
yeah, does seem a bit excessive. unless the goal was to retrieve like a black box for info, there is an entire ship down there, hardly seems like leaving one small tube makes a difference
I wonder if there is a black box to be found, after all the sub was build cutting as many corners as they could get away with
