No post body was provided.
Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
1–7 of 7 posts
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#2I don't know about OceanGate but carbon fiber is often used to save weight and still keep the same strength requirements. I wouldn't doubt that's why they did it. You can go bigger and still keep within the weight requirements. Carbon fiber is expensive relative to steel but in this case since they were looking to make it a tourist attraction then, I bet, it was economically advantageous. And in theory it can withstand an equal amount of pressure.
The big disadvantage is that when it fails it's catastrophic. It just shatters. There's no warning. At least with steel it bends before it fails. That's not the case with carbon fiber.
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#3[dead]
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#4I don't know about OceanGate but carbon fiber is often used to save weight and still keep the same strength requirements. I wouldn't doubt that's why they did it. You can go bigger and still keep within the weight requirements. Carbon fiber is expensive relative to steel but in this case since they were looking to make it a tourist attraction then, I bet, it was economically advantageous. And in theory it can withsta…
How could weight be a problem in the ocean and why would carbon fiber be cheaper than metal?
Not much of this comment checks out ?
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#5I don't know about OceanGate but carbon fiber is often used to save weight and still keep the same strength requirements. I wouldn't doubt that's why they did it. You can go bigger and still keep within the weight requirements. Carbon fiber is expensive relative to steel but in this case since they were looking to make it a tourist attraction then, I bet, it was economically advantageous. And in theory it can withsta…
How could weight be a problem in the ocean and why would carbon fiber be cheaper than metal? Not much of this comment checks out ?
For incidents like that the weight could be a problem, no?
I mean, a machine would have a hard time to make it come up.
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#6I don't know about OceanGate but carbon fiber is often used to save weight and still keep the same strength requirements. I wouldn't doubt that's why they did it. You can go bigger and still keep within the weight requirements. Carbon fiber is expensive relative to steel but in this case since they were looking to make it a tourist attraction then, I bet, it was economically advantageous. And in theory it can withsta…
How could weight be a problem in the ocean and why would carbon fiber be cheaper than metal? Not much of this comment checks out ?
The vehicle needs to be moved around above the water. There's a limit to how much weight can be moved around on the transferring boats. So that's why weight matters.
As far as why fiber is a better choice, the bigger the sub the more people it can carry. the more people it caries the better the company can cover costs. Specially since the sub cost is a one time fixed cost and the supporting costs are recurring variable costs. So it's worth making the vehicle as large as possible. Long term a bigger sub will be a better choice to get to profitability.
It's all a guess on my part.
Re: Ask HN: OceanGate why would they make a 5600psi pressure hull of carbon fiber?
#7I completely fail to see how carbon fiber could be used to build what is essentially a vacuum vessel with 16,000 psi compressing it. You're basically counting on the compressive strength of the matrix it's embedded in to resist the forces involved, the fiber can only help resist cracking a bit.
It's pushing on a string... to me, that's just nuts.
Someone has to have a good explanation on how I'm wrong. If not, that makes it even more tragic.