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Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

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Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the reverse, an autoclave large enough to hold an entire spacecraft. That was already engineering on a scale that defied my imagination considerably, doing the same at the level where an entire sub could be pressurized to 400 atmospheres is engineering on a different plane. I don't think you could do this any cheaper/easier than just strapping it to a tether and dropping it overboard in a very deep part…

Gosh, that's one big autoclave. As you say, a sub tank would be even more of a monster bit of engineering. They do exist for more normal depths but I'm not sure if there are civilian / rentable sub test tanks for this kind of ultra deep stuff.

I guess in practice for something like the titanic sub, you could program it somehow to dive unmanned to some depth deeper than normal use and then resurface. Presumably with some radio beacon so you can find it when it does. Or a long cable connected to monitoring devices. If it didn't come back you'd have lost a sub but not lives.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#622
post #378
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sealed from the outside >no location beacon Wtf is anyone thinking getting in this thing?

The set of people that would enter an experimental sub to visit the titanic, and the ones that would do it with a craft that is bolted shut from the outside, is probably close to even.

Add to that the $250000 price tag qualifier

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#623
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In submersible tech, just beneath the surface is 0-30m depth basically (for salt water). Cellphones signals are about 2m max while higher frequencies (eg 2.4GHz) drop off exponentially so are <1m

Antennea can trivially extend over 30m, and can float on the surface. As a wire attached to an inflatable float, for either bidirectional communication or as a GPS beacon, or both, the complete solution could exist for less than $10k and less than 10 kilograms to solve this. Why doesn't this exist for this craft that can only be openned from the outside?? There exists the ability to communicate from directly above, s…

You seem to be under the impression that the people paying a quarter million dollars to get bolted shut in an experimental sub to go see the titanic are reasonable and people who would think of that. They aren't.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#624
post #30

This appears to be the vessel in question: https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html Pressure hull made from titanium and carbon fiber, capable of diving to 4000m (13,000 ft). I recall that one reason SpaceX switched from carbon fiber to stainless steel pressure vessels (fuel tanks) was the difficulty of detecting structural flaws. Can any engineers comment on whether that task is easier for a vessel expo…

I think Titan imploded killing the crews instantly. This would explain sudden lost of contact and subsequently unable to find them. Those fiber has been confirmed to buckle from cyclic pressure. The take away from this incident is OceanGate should have pursue Edison manual ways of repetitive testing. It would be very expensive but the knowledge gather from those test will enhance material science of carbon fiber use in that kind of scenrios and design specs. Instead they prefer to fire the engineer whistleblower who try to save them. Such irony.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much the exact opposite of designing a spacecraft.

Then let me amend what I wrote: It's as difficult as designing a spacecraft, because you reach the limits of what materials that can be used can offer.

Well, once you are in space the forces are pretty tame until you get hit by something. But the ocean never rests from trying to kill you, even the smallest material defect can cause an implosion. Personally I think designing for a delta of 400 atmospheres in compression is much, much harder than for 1 atmosphere in tension.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#626
post #30

This appears to be the vessel in question: https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html Pressure hull made from titanium and carbon fiber, capable of diving to 4000m (13,000 ft). I recall that one reason SpaceX switched from carbon fiber to stainless steel pressure vessels (fuel tanks) was the difficulty of detecting structural flaws. Can any engineers comment on whether that task is easier for a vessel expo…

My background is in aerospace and while I’m not an expert on COPVs, I’m familiar with their design. Carbon fiber overwrap is really good for internal pressure applications or in other words, the typical pressure vessel due to carbon fiber’s very high tensile strength. Think of those videos where folks put rubber bands on watermelons to make them explode; the concept is similar to a COPV in that the rubber bands (carbon fiber) “compress” the watermelon (pressure vessel) to “contain” the pressure. COPVs can take high internal pressures of 6000 PSI (which is the same internal pressure of the ISS NORS tank used to recharge oxygen and nitrogen on the ISS and coincidentally is the same *external* pressure experienced at the depths of the Titanic. (Some helium bottles have higher internal pressure). While in aerospace applications there are some load cases where the COPV has an external pressure load on them like a helium bottle stored in a propellant tank on a SpaceX Falcon 9, those pressures are nowhere near deep sea pressures.

The reason why I don’t think COPVs are a good design for an external pressure application is the load direction; carbon fiber tow doesn’t really do well maintaining an external load. Think back to the watermelon example; apply an increased external pressure and the rubber bands really don’t help with withstanding that increased pressure.

Carbon fiber itself is very difficult to verify that you have the correct properties once they're wound onto the tank. The properties are anisotropic meaning depending on the direction of the fiber you’re gonna get different mechanical properties. Defects like delamination (when a wind unwraps) or voids between the tank wall and fiber are common if you don’t have a qualified winding operation and really really good procedures. In short, while not needing software, repeatability in manufacturing a COPV is incredibly difficult. Part of the reason SpaceX switched to metal tanks is that the mechanical properties of stainless actually increase in a cryogenic environment so there’s an added benefit.

In 2016, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 carrying AMOS-6 exploded during a routine static fire due to a buckled liner of a COPV on the 2nd stage LOX tank. The liner buckled which created a void between the liner and the fiber overwrap which then developed solid oxygen (or an ingress of LOX) that initiated an explosion due to friction. Falcon 9 had been flying for 6 years at that point so I’d consider that a pretty mature or at least an “operational” vehicle so for it to explode on the pad like that is how tricky COPVs can be.

EDIT: Spelling and clarification on delamination

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#627
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had some work in designing vessels to take external pressure. It's fundamentally a nonlinear problem. A lot of new(and some not so new) engineers don't understand the process of solving it properly For instance, euler buckling is the simple eigenvalue problem of solving a column in compression. But, it misses: initial defect because nothing is truly straight, material nonlinear effects if the part approaches yie…

That’s sounds crazy complicated. In engineering is it like software design where you can get very far just being bad? Like do companies hire just crap engineers who don’t know all this stuff and call it a day? (Kind of like hiring offshore to build mvp for cheapiest crappiest quality possible)

It is crazy complicated. In my experience, most companies have a few highly competent engineers who get funneled the work of lower level engineers with a review process. These engineers will also set up some domain-specific guardrails/guidelines that can help keep the lower level engineers from causing catastrophic issues.

Combine that with a healthy safety factor to cover the unknowable (internal material structure, etc) and you're generally safe.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the reverse, an autoclave large enough to hold an entire spacecraft. That was already engineering on a scale that defied my imagination considerably, doing the same at the level where an entire sub could be pressurized to 400 atmospheres is engineering on a different plane. I don't think you could do this any cheaper/easier than just strapping it to a tether and dropping it overboard in a very deep part…

Gosh, that's one big autoclave. As you say, a sub tank would be even more of a monster bit of engineering. They do exist for more normal depths but I'm not sure if there are civilian / rentable sub test tanks for this kind of ultra deep stuff.

I'm not even sure they exist at all for that depth.

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Goliath Awaits is a 1981 American made-for-television action adventure science fiction thriller... about an ocean liner sunk by a German U-boat in 1939 whose wreck is discovered in 1981, with over 300 survivors and their descendants living in an air bubble inside the ship."[1] Watched it as a kid, and it definitely stuck in my head. Quite impressive cast. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_Awaits

And the movie is in the public domain, so you can stream it on the the internet archive! https://archive.org/details/goliathawaits1981

is it really? the wikipedia article says it was first broadcast in 1981

Re: Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

#630
post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the movie is in the public domain, so you can stream it on the the internet archive! https://archive.org/details/goliathawaits1981

is it really? the wikipedia article says it was first broadcast in 1981

It was donated to the public domain by the creators. If you follow the link to IA it's explained there.
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