The Titan Sub
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.
Why are all these cases about “self-defense”?
B.L.U.F. What was supposed to be a short article regarding why we see “self-defense” in so many challenges turned into a 5000-word article covering the opening statements of the NFA hearings in 1934 plus random musings on yelling fire and other historical legal stuff.
If you get anything out of this, please at least click the like button. I’m having trouble justifying to myself the effort I’m putting into these articles.
—it’s just Boris, Are the courts balanced in amicus curiae?, Gun Free Zone, (last visited Jun. 25, 2023)
Boris, you are correct. I agree that it is extremely irritating to hear, over and over again, that our rights are dependent on “self-defense” or being a member of the militia or “sporting purposes” and on and on and on.
This is a stepping stone. It took us a long time to get back to this level of Second Amendment protected rights.
Consider the testimony in Congress over the National Firearms Act.
Read More
And this is the way to do it.
The FedBois (Wannabe or otherwise) tried to crash/photobomb a rally and the participants were not enthused by the idea.
They went to hands:
Numbers and anonymity are usually their weapon, but only because they face people not willing to use force to “dissuade” them off their behavior. This group had no qualms, pushed them out and then uncovered their hidden mugs which sent them into a panic.
This needs to be repeated over and over not only with the Fedbois but with Antifoids.
And do share their uncovered faces all over the internet.
They always, always, always lie
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.
Are the courts balanced in amicus curiae?
According to one of the lawyers that speaks on Second Amendment rights, the policy of the courts on accepting amicus curiae from anybody is a rather recent policy change with the courts. It used to be that you had to show real reasons to be considered a friend of the court.
Of the hundreds of pages submitted to the Supreme Court in —it’s just Boris, Are the courts balanced in amicus curiae?, Gun Free Zone, (last visited Jun. 25, 2023) most are from amicus curiae submissions. In appeals, it is the same. There are the actual pleadings by the parties, and then there are all the amicus curia submissions.
In To be blunt, Bruen fails to adhere to even basic academic standards – P.J.C. I write about Patrick J. Charles. He submits amicus curiae briefings in many of these Second Amendment cases. The courts almost always grant him permission to submit.
He is just one guy. He doesn’t belong to any group. His claim to fame is that he has written a number of books advocating for infringing on the Second Amendment and calling anybody and everybody who thinks that the right to “keep and bear arms” gives an individual the right to keep and bear arms an idiot or worse.
It is very uncommon to see a person or entity submit a motion for leave to file an amicus brief and then to have the court reject it. When this, ORDER re: Motion for leave to file amicus brief. John Cutonilli’s motion to file an amicus brief is DENIED. [74]
showed up in Celeb Barnett v. Kwame Raoul I needed to find out why.
The first question to ask is, “Who is John Cutonilli?” A quick Google search turns up “Cutonilli v. State of Maryland”. This is a reference to a case from 2015.
Read More