I haven’t written about the Titan sub yet, because I’ve been busy and didn’t want to go off half-cocked.

I will fully admit that I’m not a maritime engineer, but I am a materials engineer, and that should count for a little bit.

I also had a good, long conversation with a buddy and co-worker who was a mechanical engineer with Scaled Composites.  Pretty much the best composites engineering firm on the planet.

Here are some things that came of that conversation and stuff that I have seen online.

First, a video on the carbon fiber wrapping of the sub body.

Next is the attachment of the body to the titanium collars for the end caps.

Carbon fiber is very strong, both in compression and tension.  But the fiber itself is only part of the composite. The remainder of the composite is an epoxy matrix.  The wrapping of the fiber is very important, as the compressive strength in the composite comes from keeping the fibers linear in the direction of loading.  Both the fiber wrap and the epoxy matrix are necessary to keep the fibers in line with the direction of the load (compressive hoop).  When that fails, the result is interlaminary shear and buckling of the fibers.

This video shows exactly what that looks like.

This article from Composites World describes the manufacture of the sub body.

The biggest challenge, Spencer reports, was developing a manufacturable design that “would produce a consistent part with no wrinkles, voids or delaminations.” And without use of an autoclave. Spencer opted for a layup strategy that combines alternating placement of prepreg carbon fiber/epoxy unidirectional fabrics in the axial direction, with wet winding of carbon fiber/epoxy in the hoop direction, for a total of 480 plies. The carbon fiber is standard-modulus Grafil 37-800 (30K tow), supplied by Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. (Irvine, CA, US). Prepreg was supplied by Irvine-based Newport Composites, now part of Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber & Composites Inc. The wet-winding epoxy is Epon Resin 682 from Hexion Inc. (Columbus, OH, US). The curing agent is Lindride LS-81K frLindau Chemicals Inc.cals (Columbia, SC, US).

Initial design work indicated that the hull, to be rated for 4,000m depth with a 2.25 safety factor, should be 114 mm thick or 4.5 inches, which OceanGate opted to round up to 5 inches (127 mm) to build in an additional safety margin.

After layup and winding was complete, the cylinder was bagged with cellowrap and then cured in an oven at 137°C for 7 days. There was no postcure. Spencer says initial assessment of the cured cylinder shows that it has porosity of <1%. As CW went to press, the cylinder was being prepared for machining to cut it to length, square up the ends and bond it to the titanium end caps.

This was very much a first-of-its-kind sub.

The CEO, Stockton Rush, bragged about how he liked to break the rules of what has never been done before.

CEO Stockton Rush: "I have broken some rules to make this. (…) The carbon fibre and titanium there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did.“#Titanic #OceanGate #Titan pic.twitter.com/XuUAMuCJ2v

— stonking.com (@stonking) June 22, 2023

The design worked.  At least a few times.  The evidence is there, the sub made several dives to depth.

This is where I believe the problem lied.

The sub was cyclically loaded to 5,500 psi.  The epoxy matrix has, effectively, no strength.  Under cyclic loading, interlaminary shear allowed the fibers to move within the epoxy matrix so the poxy was no longer supporting the carbon fiber.  During the final dive, the lack of support of the fiber caused it to buckle and the sub to crush in the middle.  Literally, as the sub was repeatedly squeezed, the individual layers of the carbon fiber began to separate.

This is the big advantage that metal has over composites, the predictability of fatigue in metal.

My buddy who was at Scaled Composites told me that they worked on a lightweight composite sub for emergency rescue and military applications that could be flown in, in much less time than it took other subs to deploy from the back of a ship.

The project was canceled because their sub could only be guaranteed as a one-time-use-only vessel, and the cost was too high.

Leaving behind material science, the design seems sketchy.

If you watch this video on the making of another DSV, you will see how the crew capsule is perfectly spherical.  As perfectly spherical as can be machined to that size.

The famous Alvin sub, the one that discovered the resting place of the Titanic, used a spherical compartment.

All of the deep diving DSVs use a spherical crew compartment, as that is the strongest shape in hydrostatic compression.

The cylindrical body of the Titan sub was a weak point.

The other DSVs also use a metal (Titanium) crew compartment.  Titanium is used for weight, not strength.  There are many steel alloys that are stronger, but they want light weight to minimize the amount of flotation ballast needed to maintain neutral or positive buoyancy.

The result was a less than optimal design made from a less than optimal material.

That seems likevan extraordinary amount of rist to take by a small company.

Why do that?

Apparently, the CEO wanted inspirational, outside-the-box, thinking.

The CEO of OceanGate, which is operating the missing Titanic tourist submarine, explains that the company didn’t want to hire any experienced “50 year old white guys” because they weren’t “inspirational.” pic.twitter.com/kxXkhBn7oL

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) June 21, 2023

Well then.

His inspirational rule breaking worked, until it didn’t, and he didn’t have the experienced,  knowledgeable people on hand to tell him why that might not be the best of ideas.

I’m not against being groundbreaking.  But this was groundbreaking failure.

They demanded more from the design than it was capable of delivering repeatedly.

The cyclic loading of the carbon fiber, and subsequent failure of the matrix to support the carbon fiber led to the crushing of the sub.

Nothing more patriotic than the US Army in drag performing for children and the President to raise money to fight Nazis… Starring Ronald Reagan. pic.twitter.com/nLfWF3OjbX

— Elvis Bob Rasputin (@Elvis_Bob) May 19, 2023

This is from a 1943 movie, This Is The Army.

According to this LGBT activist, it provides there is nothing more American and patriotic than drag.

Drag queens are real Americans.

Of course, he has to lie by conflating.

In the plot of the movie, the solders in the performance are a troop of soldiers that perform for units at the front to boost morale.  They get the opportunity to return stateside to perform for the President.

The soldiers in “drag” are doing so because there were no females at the front.

This is Vaudeville.

This is not the sexualized, double entendre named, fetishized drag queens that are at the center of controversy today.

That, a musical with music Irving Berlin, is not this degeneracy.

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1571544256862470145?s=19

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1619515430779097088?s=19

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1603512564628987922?s=19

But this degenerate needs you to believe that This Is The Army is the same as that perversion so that you are the bad guy for not wanting children exposes to it.

I will not them bullshit me.

I can tell the difference between wartime camp and perverts who engage in sexually degeneracy in front of children.

I have eyes and a functioning, rational mind.

This is evil, trying to lie to you, that two plus two doesn’t equal four, and drag is wholesome and patriotic.

Ohio boy, 2, shoots his pregnant mother, 31, in the back with pistol he found in nightstand: Mom and baby both died after emergency C-section

A two-year-old boy shot his pregnant mother in the back with a pistol he found in her nightstand, killing her and her unborn child.

Police in Norwalk, Ohio rushed to the scene on June 16 after receiving a frantic call from the mother, Laura Ilg, 31, moments after she was shot in the back.

Her Marine husband Alek, 28, who was at work at the time, also called dispatchers, telling them he ‘received a phone call from his wife “screaming something about my son and needing to call 911″‘, cops said.

Ilg was rushed to nearby Fisher-Titus Medical Center, where surgeons performed an emergency cesarean section but they were unable to save the baby. Ilg was tragically declared dead around three hours later.

This is a fucking tragedy.

That’s what this is.

A boy lost his mom and will have to deal with the emotional fallout of that when he’s old enough to understand what he did.

A husband lost his wife and unborn child.

The gun was left unsecured in a drawer.

This could have been prevented with the purchase of a cheap lock box.

But now a family is destroyed.

I have two kids.

My nightstand gun is in a Liberty biometric safe for this exact reason.

All of my guns are behind steel if not on my body.

Lock up your guns.

No politics, just glorious action and beautiful violence.

From the UK Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE: The trans school conspiracy exposed: Midwest teachers trade tips on ‘subversively and quietly’ transitioning kids without telling their parents, and skirting Republican gender laws, in workshop funded by federal government

Dozens of Midwestern teachers met online this week and traded tips on helping trans students change gender at school without their parents’ knowledge, while criticizing a raft of new Republican laws on sex and identity.

DailyMail.com gained access to an online session hosted by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center (MAP), which is funded by the Department of Education, attended by some 30 teachers from Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and beyond.

In the four-hour workshop, they discussed helping trans students in the face of new laws in Republican-run states on gender, pronouns, names, parents’ rights, bathroom access, and sports teams.

Some teachers said they followed the rules, but others discussed being ‘subversive,’ how their personal ‘code of ethics’ trumped laws, and how to ‘hide’ a trans student’s new name and gender from their parents.

In the discussion and role-play sessions that followed, the teachers, administrators, principals, and counselors spoke about trans students and their families in a way that would alarm many parents.

Kimberly Martin, the DEI coordinator for Royal Oak Schools, which serves 5,000 K-12 students in Michigan, spoke about helping trans students keep their gender change a secret.

Let me get this straight.

A bunch if teachers met online, to work together on how to push children into gender transition, in violation of both the law and the rights of the parents to have and say in the lives of their children.

There’s a word for that.

Conspiracy.

Yes, it is in fact a conspiracy by activist teachers to secretly trans children.

This is more than just a social contagion, this us a malicious conspiracy.

This should be top news throughout the country.

These teachers should be thrown in prison for subverting the law and parents to emotionally and physically harm children with their radical gender ideology.

Hero gran, 50, is horrifically mauled as she wrestled neighbor’s pitbull with her bare hands to protect grandkids aged two and four after it lunged at her, dragged her from her doorway and tore chunks out of her leg, arm and face

A heroic grandmother was violently mauled as she wrestled her neighbor’s violent pitbull with her bare hands to protect her two young grandchildren, leaving her dripping with blood after the dog tore chunks out of her face, legs and arms.

Rhonda Stickney, from Motley, Minnesota, said the dangerous animal lunged at her daughter Tiffani, 27, grandson Jaxsyen, four, and Keyahra, two, as they stood in her doorway.

The giant dog went on to tear chunks out of her arm and face. Stickney claims she then grabbed hold of the dog’s jaw to stop it from biting her further until the owner came over to wrestle it off and drag it inside.

The mother-of-five believes she will have scars for life on her chin, eye, arm and leg as a result of the incident.

She added: ‘My grandchildren saw the whole thing. My daughter was screaming. It tore at my face and latched onto my arm.

‘My arm was punctured so when they went to rinse it to clean it out, it ran straight out the other side.

She remains on medication months later and has to go to hospital twice a week to get her leg repacked.

Following the horrific ordeal, Stickney contacted the police. The dog was not destroyed but the neighbor was forced to put a microchip in the animal and make it wear a muzzle whenever it goes outside.

She added: ‘The police came over and they were going to deem it as “possible dangerous” but I pushed it and showed them the photos of my injuries and they deemed it as a dangerous dog.

‘They made her microchip it and wear a muzzle when it goes outside. That’s not ok when there are kids around.’

Explain to me how a dog that jumps a fence, attacks children, and rips holes in a woman’s face, leg, and arm isn’t pit down?

I’ve had to have wounds packed before. It hurts like a bastard.

I try to be neighborly, but I’d shoot the fucking dog.

Sometimes bad guys come more than one at a time:

Screams heard as 6 suspects force their way into Tacoma home

In Pierce County, police are searching for six people who forced their way into a home in Tacoma.

Video from a Ring camera captured the terrified screams from inside the home.

Tacoma police told KIRO 7 the suspects kicked in the door at a home on South Trafton Street before 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

Officials say the group held the occupants at gunpoint, stole items, then left.

Six people.

Six.

This is the type of situation where a high capacity magazine, perhaps in an AR-15, is necessary.

The bureaucrats who tell you that you only need 10 rounds to hunt deer don’t consider half a dozen people with the intention of doing you harm kicking in your door at dark o’clock in the morning.