Titan/Titanic tragedy

That’s the description I heard as well about what happens during an implosion. As gruesome as that is, when it’s your time, that might be the best way to go.

I just saw that some wreckage has arrived in St. Johns, so hopefully they will at least be able to do an analysis on this failure to determine how it failed so that at least something can be learned for anyone else thinking of ignoring sound advice.
 
Pictures on the news today of recovered bits.

Obvious parts were the front and rear bell, the bonding rings that would have been on either end of the cf “tube”, skids, rear fairings and the rear mechanical package. At least one large “bag” was lifted off the deck and on to the dock. Looked like some loose hard parts sticking out.

What I didn’t see any of was the cf tube. Doesn’t mean they don’t have any of it, just that I didn’t see any of it in the pictures.

Other notable observations:

the bonding rings didn’t look to have any cf still bonded to them. At least not obvious by the limited pictures.

The mechanical package had been separated from the rear bell attachments

The front bell was missing the observation window. It was definitely out of the bell as they had the lifting strap run through the opening. May be significant that it was missing, or it may have simply been blown out as a result of the implosion.

I also found it interesting that the front and rear bell were “bolted” to the bonding rings, but they were not still attached to them when recovered. Might be significant, or perhaps the bolts simply sheared off during the implosion event.

No CF hull seen on news, but can’t draw any conclusions from that. It may simply not have been in the pictures, it may be in small pieces or it might have been blown to smithereens. Time will tell.

Not to be morbid, but I’m quite interested to see what the findings are about failure points….
 
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I figured that there would be nothing recognizable but am surprised that there is enough time for the remainder to flash to ash! Pocket fire sticks work on a compression cycle where enough energy is applied to start the tinder to burn.
 
pdentrem said:
I figured that there would be nothing recognizable but am surprised that there is enough time for the remainder to flash to ash! Pocket fire sticks work on a compression cycle where enough energy is applied to start the tinder to burn.
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Well, this was their “best guess”. Not a lot of research or data about implosions at that depth (For obvious reasons).

I would say most of it was drawn from the physics expected to be encountered in that type of event.

Math can give you a lot of the answers, but you still need to experiment and verify the math translates to “real life”….
 
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I can imagine a big part of the reason it failed was the use of dissimilar materials.
Different materials expand and contract at different rates. Plus, of course, some are more flexible than others. Even the bolts holding it together would have expanded and contracted at different rates.
The expansion differences would have added more stress to the vessel overall and I bet those were never accounted for.

I don't know that inorganic matter would have flash burned. The flash burning would, likely, have been more prevalend where pockets (however you want to call them) of matter that would be subject to having dissolved gasses inside.

So, while the atmosphere inside the sub would have flash burned, that temp would have been short lived. Not enough time to do much damage to inorganics.
The flash burning inside the body cells wouldn't have had much work to do to burn off the organic matter of each cell and would have a better chance of ashing off.

But that's just a guess.
 
Its surprising how human flesh responds to a “flash burn”.

It was always one of those things we were concerned about in the aircraft. Lots of training films and pictures. At thise temperatures, human flesh tends to vaporize and really quick. Less than a second for deep 3rd degree burns. And thats just burning jet fuel that rips though the cabin as a fireball. Its there and its gone as fast (or faster) than you can blink. We always wore double layer flight gear. It’s not the actual flame thats the problem, its the heat. Double layer gave you an “air break” between outside temps and next to skin temps. Doesn’t last very long, but in a flash burn fireball situ, you inly need it to last milliseconds to a few seconds. Any longer than that and you’re dead. Even if you make it (wearing double layers), the burns are going to be horrible and tou puff up like a pufferfish. the pictures of guys that survive a flash burn are absolutely horrible. Even sonething as innocent as a neck chain will transfer the heat and burn you horribly.

I’d venture to say it boils off the water content in the flesh as much as it chars it. At roughly 2000 degrees, water flashes off pretty quickly…
 
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Pictures off the news channel:

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Interesting that the metal pieces seem relatively untouched. Even the bolt holes are visible and seem undamaged, which tells me the bolts were sheared from the energy that was released during the implosion event. Bolts were probably sheared off at the heads or possibly pulled the threads right out of the holes. 5000-ish pounds per square inch is a lot of force….

I also suspect the window was blown out, not in. The retaining ring is gone as well as all the bolts that held it there, yet the visible bolt holes seem to be not deformed.

You can also see the cf tube rings/ends seem to have some sort of “glue like” substance on them, but its not uniform and there is no CF remnants evident on the rings. That is quite interesting. I’m a big fan of modern polymers, but that doesn’t seem like a proper employment of them to me….

Also interesting that all the metal parts seem to be intact and unmolested while you can’t see a scrap of the CF except for the rear fairings. I’ll wiait for findings before saying more about that, but its interesting from a failure mode analysis perspective.

They reported there were 3 bags of loose parts, so maybe the CF bits are in those.

Findings should be interesting for sure.
 
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I came across this interesting article, there is a company that makes carbon fiber submersibles that dive deeper than the Titanic, and have done hundreds of cycles, but they only do unmanned as yet.

www.designnews.com

Carbon Fiber Is Safe for Submersibles When Properly Applied

Composite Energy Technologies has built dozens of carbon fiber deep-sea pressure vessels without failure.
www.designnews.com www.designnews.com
 
Inferno said:
Maybe the problem was the duct tape in the second picture. ;)
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LOL!

For some reason, they covered over the company name on the side of the broken fairing. As if anyone wouldn't know what it is at this point.

Ironically, I bet the duct tape would have made the trip down and back up without any damages.....
 
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