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- which is a sort of inside out submarine, innit?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koxzz7LDmEE
( , Thu 22 Jun 2023, 18:34, Reply)
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I knew that pressure vessels can be made with glass fibre, which is strong in tension, but I just can’t understand why they would use carbon fibre for something that had to withstand external pressures. Also, if you can’t make a vehicle without a hatch perhaps you should think again.
It’s been ages since I studied engineering but it sounds like they were putting their faith in little more than epoxy.
( , Thu 22 Jun 2023, 20:42, Reply)
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But I have to say I’m thinking much the same. It looks as if it was the carbon fibre side that failed, which makes me wonder about duty cycles, load increase rates, and how the material might react to such extreme stresses.
One thing that can be said though is that the occupants wouldn’t have known much about what happened.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 1:47, Reply)
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In a bad way. The company touted some sort of real-time fatigue measurement system, that in hindsight only exists because composites can fail unexpectedly.
Then there are the lawsuits from "old white guys*" who claim they were sacked for pointing out flaws in the design.
Honestly I expect that this story will go on for a lot longer and the company will face many more lawsuits than they already have.
There's a certain musk about this story, but as you say the poor bastards who died down there wouldn't have suffered. On the other hand, exposure to vacuum must be an absolutely awful way to go.
*The management's words, not mine. Apparently they preferred younger folks without much experience in the way of submarines.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 4:16, Reply)
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( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 9:53, Reply)
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( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 10:30, Reply)
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( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 10:51, Reply)
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In the previous films, they all just start dissolving into meaningless polygons.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 12:04, Reply)
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then looked at what their sandwich lunch was wrapped in
and made a choice
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 12:38, Reply)
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Certainly preferable to the fate of poor Truls Hellevik in the Byford Dolphin Diving Bell Incident.
Really puts it into perspective when you consider the Byford Dolphin accident took place at 9 atmospheres. The crew of the Titan were dealt 340-400 atmospheres of pressure.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 11:56, Reply)
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I don't imagine Truls knew much about what was going on before he was turned into salsa either.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 15:44, Reply)
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that the carbon fibre cylinder would have failed by shattering, leaving the occupants in a rapidly collapsing bubble of air. That bubble, and its occupants, would have been superheated to plasma in about 20ms by the pressure. To quote one commenter “they went from biology to physics“.
The human nervous system has a delay of about 200ms so they wouldn’t have known a thing about it.
( , Fri 23 Jun 2023, 21:12, Reply)