The US Coast Guard has just begun its public inquiry into the Titan Submersible accident, and in the process has released a number of documents, including, critical footage from a remotely operated vehicle showing the wreckages on the ocean floor. The spaceman looks at the available material and gives his own thoughts on why the sub failed.
Key takeaways from the video:
ROV footage was released showing the wreck. Apparently it's only the pressurized section that caved in as the footage shows the unpressurized tail-end containing electronics to be mostly in one piece
Full communications transcript has been released. It does not indicate that either crew was in any way aware of the vessel failing
Despite what many people (including on here) said, carbon fiber and titanium have apparently been successfully used for submersible design by US navy, the significant difference being that it was for an ROV
The footage shows the pressure hull having imploded unequally, instead a lot of material was being pushed into the tail-end. Judging off this, it is likely that the structure failed at head-end, potentially on the interface of the titanium end-ring and the carbon fiber, which lead to buckling further down the line and collapsed the whole structure
Previously the most circulated idea was that point of failure occurred in the center of the vessel, where it is exposed to peak stress
There is also footage from OceanGate promotional videos showing the installation of said end-ring, where they glue it in place (which coincidentally is what the US navy did for their ROV as well)
The failure at that section might have been caused by mismatched moduli of compression of the two materials, causing extra stress between carbon fiber and titanium as they were compressed under pressure. That is however a wild guess by the author of the video with nothing to back it up, and he himself admits that it could've been a variety of other factors involved in cutting costs, like using low-quality carbon fiber
The prototype for the atmosphere scrubber on board was a sealed plastic box with the absorbent... and a single PC fan blowing over it
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Watch "Oceanliners Design". He has tons of content on the Titanic wreck and other 19th and 20th century Ocean Liners.
Everyone makes silly mistakes
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I'll bookmark that one
In my defense I'm mostly working with nano optics/photonics, but this is just coping at this point. This is a good example that simply holding a degree doesn't make you smart
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Physics is a such a broad field, unless you're von Neumann level genius you'll eventually forget about stuff you haven't seen in years even if it is basic stuff, but I bet you could pick it up fast and with ease if you go check a textbook on Fluid Dynamics. College gives you a tool box of knowledge to eventually apply and that's it.
People hear stuff like "oh you studied physics you must be super smart" and while I bet they're there's still a lot of hard work and dedication involved which is more admirable than being a progidy.
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