Titanic

[Noel]

Yes, a good point. However, the same was said about trains, cars and aeroplanes. Nobody really appreciated or understood why they were being invented or what use they might be. However, once developed a use was found that has greatly enhanced mankind. A lot of people died developing air travel.

I wouldn’t quite agree with that.
Cars? No horse needed.Horseless carriage etc
Trains? Transportation for the masses at relatively low cost.
Planes? A dream of humankind to fly like a bird and all that followed.

 

[deema]

Not the same. This "vessel's" sole purpose was rubbernecking. The "tech" for deep dive vessels exists ( witness the "rescue vessels sent to the scene ), the difference between them and this vessel is that this was a "Rube Goldberg" device, cobbled together to transport rich tourists to a depth which the viewing port and other parts ( and the combination of them and the methods used in the construction ) were already known to be not capable of repeated dives to those depths without breaking.
the people running it were / are chancers, not engineers, whose luck ran out.

Carbon fibre isn't magical.

I only had a ‘shallow dive‘ in the company, but its my understanding that the technology doesn’t really exist. I remember being quoted, that it’s easier to go to space than the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. The number of company’s that make deep sea stuff you can count on just about one hand. Military Navy subs are not deep sea stuff, they faff around in c 300m. The deepest pressurised diving bell is 700m.
Most vessels cannot stand its reported much more than 900m so let’s say the limit is around 1000m. Anything else has typically been devised for recovery of lost military stuff and is unmanned. We are taking 4 times this depth and the pressure increases rapidly. I might still have some photos of our bone yard of obsolete stuff from the North Sea. At these ‘modest death’ the thickness of the steel plate was ridiculous. I can fully understand for weight, and thickness of steel needed why they would look at alternative materials.

 

[Fergie 307]

The Wikipedia page on OceanGate has details about the development of the Titan submersible. It all sound a bit Heath Robinson. It suggests that the titanium shell was only rated to 4000m for one trip and should have been dived to progressively lesser depths thereafter. Also, the manufacturer of the porthole material would not guarantee it for depths greater than 1500m.

Sure I read somewhere that the Soviets had problems with their titanium hulled subs suffering metal fatigue, as a result of the constant pressure cycles from repeated diving and surfacing. And these were full sized naval subs diving to a mere few hundred metres.

 

[deema]

@Noel
Cars initially were the play things of the very rich, with them being limited in the UK to walking pace (a man with a red flag had to walk in front of them).
Trains were believed to be the devils work with it widely reported that over I think 30 miles an hour speed a man would suffocate due to a lack of oxygen.
Early aeroplanes were again the play things of the wealthy however with the help of the Schneider cup, the early technology was pushed forward. The First World War started to see a use for them and by the Second World War the desire to kill more efficiently pushed aircraft and aero engine development forward at a pace.

 

[Fergie 307]

Picards bathyscaphe took two men to the bottom.of the Marianas trench in 1960s, and they returned safely. Getting on for three times the depth of the Titanic. 5 or 6 inch thick steel armour plate sphere as I recall, suspended below a large buoyancy vessel looking a bit like an airship, and filled with petrol of all things. Petrol chosen because it had the right level of buoyancy to counteract the very considerable weight of the pressure vessel, so the whole thing had neutral bouyancy, and was non compressible. Not sure what the environmentalists would make of that idea nowadays! No idea what the window was made of.

 

[Terrytpot]

Interesting what can be done if you take it all a bit more seriously…although even this was all about a very wealthy individual wanting to do something no one else had done.
https://www.boatinternational.com/y...cord-breaking-triton-built-submersible--41923

 

[ajs]

Picards bathyscaphe took two men to the bottom.of the Marianas trench in 1960s, and they returned safely. Getting on for three times the depth of the Titanic. 5 or 6 inch thick steel armour plate sphere as I recall, suspended below a large buoyancy vessel looking a bit like an airship, and filled with petrol of all things. Petrol chosen because it had the right level of buoyancy to counteract the very considerable weight of the pressure vessel, so the whole thing had neutral bouyancy, and was non compressible. Not sure what the environmentalists would make of that idea nowadays! No idea what the window was made of.

The Trieste had considerable postive bouancy when the blaast was released. The petrol was there to ensure that - less dense than water and highly incompressible. When the lead shot ballast was released it floated back up. From memory the window was Perspex, same as here, although a lot thikcer than here. I remember seeing a picture of it several years ago, essentially a long truncated cone fitting in a tapered hole in the hull so pressure reinforced the seal, also tiny compared to this one, about the size of a dinner plate.

 

[Rewound]

I agree. People should be free to take whatever risks they like. The proviso being they do not risk others or expect others to bail them out. After all that’s how we advanced from apes in the first place.

Totally agree, the risks were obvious, so why is it even news ?

5 people a day die on British roads (60 across the eu) Every single day. It barely gets a mention and many of these people will die because others are breaking the law. No one cares, most people will yawn when they read this post - boring boring boring, they just want to drive fast!

Yet 5 people die knowingly doing something extremely dangerous, and it is headline news, and will be for months to come.

 

[pe2dave]

They were warned years ago about their lack safety and operational competence, but they brushed off the criticism.

For which they paid the price.

 

[Jameshow]

Totally agree, the risks were obvious, so why is it even news ?

5 people a day die on British roads (60 across the eu) Every single day. It barely gets a mention and many of these people will die because others are breaking the law. No one cares, most people will yawn when they read this post - boring boring boring, they just want to drive fast!

Yet 5 people die knowingly doing something extremely dangerous, and it is headline news, and will be for months to come.

Lots more die from suicide which is even more tragic, and 75% are men....

 

[artie]

@Noel
Cars initially were the play things of the very rich, with them being limited in the UK to walking pace (a man with a red flag had to walk in front of them).
Trains were believed to be the devils work with it widely reported that over I think 30 miles an hour speed a man would suffocate due to a lack of oxygen.
Early aeroplanes were again the play things of the wealthy however with the help of the Schneider cup, the early technology was pushed forward. The First World War started to see a use for them and by the Second World War the desire to kill more efficiently pushed aircraft and aero engine development forward at a pace.

I remember an older guy explaining to me in the nineties, that mobile phones were just an executive toy. nobody needs one.

Someone commented that the only purpose for this vessel was rubber necking, that may be what it was being used for, but who knows what else it could be used for, or what benefits mankind could find in the deep dark waters.

It's a tragedy that that this happened, buy history is full of stories of "mad" men who pushed the boundaries, paying the ultimate price, but discovering something of benefit to the world.

 

[naughtymoose]

The biggest issue, I think, is that men and women have been putting their lives on the line by trying to locate the (now destroyed) submersible.
People that take excessive risks, for whatever reason, and in whatever industry or activity, end up needing to be rescued, and the rescuers often die in the performance of their "duty".

 

[Doris]

Does increasingly sound like a bit of an amateurish operation, not really the sort of approach you want to have if you are going two and a half miles down! If you look at how Robert Ballard operated with Alvin to find the ship in the first place, altogether much more professional approach.

I'm very intrigued why Robert Ballard, the guy who discovered the Titanic has still not said anything to the press about these events. Even James Cameron has made a statement over the whole thing now.

I think it's all inappropriate diving down to such depths to gawp at a tragedy and someone was making money out of this too. Research to those depths, to learn things yes I'm all for but when you hear of people diving down there to get married it's all very distasteful money making exercise. Then again it seems everyone else has made money out of this disaster one way or another.

 

[Jacob]

I remember an older guy explaining to me in the nineties, that mobile phones were just an executive toy. nobody needs one.

Someone commented that the only purpose for this vessel was rubber necking, that may be what it was being used for, but who knows what else it could be used for, or what benefits mankind could find in the deep dark waters.

It's a tragedy that that this happened, buy history is full of stories of "mad" men who pushed the boundaries, paying the ultimate price, but discovering something of benefit to the world.

Examples?
I don't think anybody died courageously in order to develop the mobile phone! Maybe shinning too high to fix a mast?

 

[Junah]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65925558The submersible is more newsworthy because the occupants were very rich?

 

[Spectric]

I remember an older guy explaining to me in the nineties, that mobile phones were just an executive toy. nobody needs one.

Does anyone really need one, if they were that essential to life then how did we all survive pre mobile phones or pre phones full stop. The mobile phone has become a cancer to society eating away at it's very fabric to the point mothers ignore there kids and people have become isolated from their surroundings.

To push boundaries requires risk and there has always been a group of people who just accept these risk as part of some objective. Think of test pilots in the early days of trying to break the sound barrier. Then you have people like Donald Campbell, he knew the risk every time he made any record attempt but he just accepted the fact he would probably never reach old age. I would say these people had some idea of the risk, if the company had not sat them down and been totally honest then they were neglient but to enter any extreme zone is not without risk but I would question the actual vessel. Experimental or prototype vessels should be used for making money.

Those people knew nothing as it imploded, over 5000 pounds per square inch or 2.5 tonnes for every square inch is some pressure when you consider the area of the vessel and you have to ask how did they test it in the first place ?

 

[Yorkieguy]

It's been said that the pressure at that depth is 340 times atmospheric pressure at sea level (14.7 lbs/sq inch). Hence, that's 14.7 x 340 = 4,998 psi. I'm not a physicist, but I recall from my far off schooldays that a sphere can withstand far more pressure than a cube or a cylinder. The science teacher explained that was why, in the 1930s, the 'Bathesphere' was designed as such.

Its purpose was to enable marine biologists to observe deep-sea creatures in their native environment. The dives set several consecutive world records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human. The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 ft (923 m) on August 15, 1934. The initial design was to be cylindrical, but it was realised that a cylinder would not withstand the pressure, so a sphere was decided upon.

Bathysphere - Wikipedia

When I saw pictures of the the ill-fated craft before news that it had imploded, I thought then, why a cylinder - not a sphere, to descend to ten times the depth of the Bathysphere? Pretty obvious really - you can house more people in a tube than a sphere and a tube is easier to construct, so commercial considerations ranked higher than physics. I dare say there will be talk about attempts to recover the bodies. It only takes a moment to realise what happens to a human body subjected to 5,000 PSI.

Apart from which, I think this picture says it all:

 

[worn thumbs]

Not the same. This "vessel's" sole purpose was rubbernecking. The "tech" for deep dive vessels exists ( witness the "rescue vessels sent to the scene ), the difference between them and this vessel is that this was a "Rube Goldberg" device, cobbled together to transport rich tourists to a depth which the viewing port and other parts ( and the combination of them and the methods used in the construction ) were already known to be not capable of repeated dives to those depths without breaking.
the people running it were / are chancers, not engineers, whose luck ran out.

Carbon fibre isn't magical.

Carbon and other composites have something in common with the wood we work with in that the material can be weakened by anything that severs the fibres.There was a mention earlier in this thread about LCD screens being screwed to the inside of the tube.This alone may have caused enough of a stress raiser to have triggered the catastrophe.
I don't suppose the tourists requested a detailed analysis of the structure prior to embarkation and probably wouldn't have understood it anyway.The company,like most others,requires cashflow and I suspect we can guess how rigourous the structural monitoring procedures may have been.The fact that professional observations at great depth are routinely carried out by ROV's gives a strong hint about the easiest way to gather visual information.
I can't see that anybody signing a waiver regarding the outcome of such a trip can be oblivious to the risk element and I don't see how such trips can be eliminated.After all,who has jurisdiction over events in the middle of a large ocean?Similarly,I have seen a mention of insurance for the operators and am amazed at the naivete of the people mentioning it,Insurers exist to avoid paying out and would have imposed conditions that would have prevented anything other than minimal depths without certification from a regulating body.Does anybody regulate the construction of this class of passenger submersible?In the same vein,I would be a little surprised if any of the passengers had life insurance that specifically covered the activity.

I have a sense of disbelief when I see newsreaders mentioning the recovery of bodies from this incident.They were very compressible entities in a vessel that was squashed by enormous pressure and it isn't hard to work out the outcome.The whole escapade is rather sad and I fully expect an investigation of some sort after which a report may be published containing the well worn phrase "lessons have been learned". Which won't make a lot of difference to the deceased.

 

[Gerry]

I used to work on a hydroforming line making car subframes. The hydroform pressure was @300bar and would force 3mm steel tube into a mold in a fraction of a second like it was platicine. Any imperfections, even a scratch on the mold tooling surface would be duplicated on the steel tube.
At the pressue down there they wouldn't even know it had happened.

Gerry

 

[Sideways]

I'm going to chip in a word on behalf of the extreme sports people here. Everyone from Everest mountaineers to cave divers. Their motivations may be incomprehensible to some but it's sort of "existential" to them. It's very different from "tourism" where someone who couldn't make the trip on their own is essentially a passenger - though the many guided Everest summits blur the line and have been the subject of controversy for decades.
Those adventurers, explorers and athletes who really push the limits are likely to be very well aware of their own mortality and they do as much as they can to understand and control the risks. The last thing they would want is for anyone to be harmed trying to rescue them even if it were possible.