Innovation or Overreach? UH Research Casts blame on OceanGate's Submersible Design says: Low quality carbon fibre lead to the accident
Innovation or Overreach? UH Research Casts blame on OceanGate's Submersible Design says: Low quality carbon fibre lead to the accident
University of Houston researchers have speculated new theory for why submersible imploded in the oceanA team at the University of Houston claims to have uncovered the cause of the tragic Titan submersible implosion that occurred in June 2023 during an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic.The subme...
No, low quality carbon fiber didn’t lead to the accident. A blatant disregard for safety, testing, and best practices led to the accident. Low quality carbon fiber just contributed a bit.
DAE remember that the OceanGate CEO bragged that Boeing helped them manufacture the sub?
At the time Boeing disavowed, but who you gonna believe?
Stockton Rush got a bargain on the carbon fiber he bought from Boeing because It was approaching the end of its shelf life and it was no longer acceptable for use in aircraft, let alone submarines.
Rush also made a number of claims about the involvement of Boeing and other companies, claiming they were "involved in both the design and construction" of his submarine. Those claims were not true. Boeing made it clear that they had NO involvement in any part of the sub's design or construction and they had simply sold Rush the carbon fiber.
Another whistleblower gone before their time
Was the issues not multiple, like the carbon fibre hul not made using vacuum technologies but just like roll on the sheet and some epoxy in a warehouse, that carbon fibre being strong tensile wise but not compression wise, the titanium carbon fibre interface and their different stress deformations due to pressure, having the Titanic OST playing the whole time, like multiple safety shortcuts and maybe using a game controller as your only form of any interaction, like what happens if some kid bites the cable or something
It bugs me that everyone harps on the controller. It's far and away the least suspect part of this.
Multiple generations of hardware iterations by many competing companies, well defined and understood software interface options, literally billions of hours of testing, easily replaceable, several axes of control, and a huge portion of the population has at least some experience with one.
There's a reason the military uses them when they can.
I mean, using a controller in and of itself is not suspect, but the model they used is the cheapest one you can get with a recognizable name and is known for being unreliable, which is absolutely a suspect decision to make when it's the only method of control
I have no issues with the controller either think it was a great addition, were I had a gripe is that it was the only way to operate the vessel, so not an addition but the sum total of controls.
Like if you were bolted into a vehicle, with no way to interact with the outside except a tiny window and only a game controller, it is a lovely piece of efficient engineering and does everything you need, but if this controller maybe gets damaged for example it's cable was unfortunately pinched off by someone's shoe. When you realise at a 1000m the closest thing to a god is that controller working and taking you safely back to surface in time or being stuck and hoping the guy who got you into the mess, that his, only other plan the dissolvable ropes on the weights actually work and you get to surface and get found and unsealed before air runs out.
Let's also not forget that there was no way to exit the submersible from the inside. The door was bolted on by the surface team. So if they had just lost power (instead of being crushed), they would've been floating on the surface with no way out. That's the another obvious horrendous design choice.
CF just seems like a bad material to use for this purpose at all
CF is extremely light, so when you want to build something that sink it make sense to build it out of extremely expensive CF rather than cheap steel like every other submarine.
But it sounds cool
From what I remember it was supposed to be a simgle use vehicle that they kept using.The CF worked great those few time but would eventually wear out because of stress fractures. That's what I remember from when the accident happened so I could be wrong.
I think "great" carries a sort of connotation as if engineers expect it might work once or twice. From the sounds of it, the better description of the submersible for the surviving trips might be that it worked miraculously. Basically divine intervention that they made it back even once.
I can show anyone that I can successfully apply low grade carbon fiber as flooring material. No matter what grade porcelain you use, you probably wouldn't use it for a submarine, car or plane body. It's all about proper engineering design based on sound science and testing of materials.
The irony of this is wild
I guess everyone was right al along, that makes for a pretty boring article though 🤣
Break-before-leak