Oceangate Sub Missing

Surely when you stomp on a Pringles container, the pressure inside vastly exceeds the pressure outside. That is not what happened here.

It might be that the window was only designed to hold massive inward pressure, not massive outward pressure. If the carbon collapsed, the inrushing water would have had a lot of momentum which would put a lot of outward pressure on the window mountings for a very short period of time. it could have blown out then.

The carbon hull is obviously completely mangled too, my money is on it collapsing

Re the window popping out. In my armchair opinion I am not convinced.

It looks like the titanium ends cleanly separated from the carbon fibre tub, so it looks like they were blown off the ends, or at least cleanly separated rather than bits of carbon fibre still glued in place.

So would there be enough force to blow out the window and separate the titanium ends. You would imagine one of those would take more force than the other so one would still be intact or show elements of fatigue separation rather than clean separation. Or did they just use cheap super glue to join it all together?

I know there are people on here who might actually know what they are talking about who will come along and know how the physics of the implosion would work

This vid is quite interesting to show the type of people who were attracted to the Titanic, and I think shows part of the culture of the Titanic community. It reminded me some what of a community of people involved with Donald Campbell and Lake Coniston. They were all a bit make it up as they went along, fallings out with each other, no agreements on the right way to do things, but an unreserved view that they were doing the right thing and had every right to do what they were doing.

In this vid the guy even collects surface ocean water to give to fellow Titanic enthusiasts. 🤷‍♂️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-8U08yJlb8

If you want a bit more insight into the whole thing (and let’s face it who doesn’t) then a chap from CBS went for a dive with them in summer 2022, and has now written a fascinating story about the whole affair.

what i dont get is this was at 9 bar, your looking like 400 where this occurred……

I can’t imagine that they would knock the window out to make it easier to get a sling through it. It is evidence.

gobuchul

I would disagree in the case of the DNV GL stuff and their like, for high pressure systems, which this basically was.

Yep and DNV are the real deal… and totally appropriate to certain situations.
My point was around relying on certifications without knowing or understanding what goes into them (or limitations)

The other issue I see is applying a culture of safety outside of where it is appropriate.

Do I want a Seaking and pilot certified… onto a certified rig absolutely.
Should scheduled flights or ABTA level tour operators charters .. absolutely

but this gets ridiculous when this degree of rigour and control is applied to everyday things or adventure things by people obsessed by safety

Had I known someone rich enough to go on the Titan I’d have told them my opinion… ultimately being “I know very little about it I suggest you pay an independent expert” .. but ultimately as an adult they are and should be free to decide.

If the carbon collapsed, the inrushing water would have had a lot of momentum which would put a lot of outward pressure on the window mountings for a very short period of time. it could have blown out then.

Cheers – I had not considered this (for the record I am not an engineer 😀) and was only picturing what might happen in my head, and couldn’t see how there would be forces pushing the window outwards. However, I had a quick look on YouTube for high pressure implosions – and this is indeed what appears to happen in one of the experiments. [not like a Pringles tube though afaics].

Winston

The issue here is if the problem (assuming you believe there is a problem) is moved elsewhere …

Obviously but we are not talking about water taxis in Bangladesh are we. Ocean gate is a US based company and was operating out of Canada. Clearly the point we are all making is that Stockton Rush would have needed more certification had he been sailing those paying guests in a 40ft yacht across the Atlantic rather than diving to the bottom of it which is crazy.

You don’t need ANY certification to take a 40′ yacht with a few fare paying passengers across the Atlantic if you set off from Liberia and land in the Cayman Islands for example.

I’m sure there is some paper work at both sides that can be bypassed by paying off officials and probably a few bribes if they cross national waters.

what I don’t get is this was at 9 bar, your looking like 400 where this occurred……

That’s the opposite reaction, that was rapid decompression.

There is talk of human remains being found. This is against what plenty of internet “commentators” stated was possible. Apparently the amount of energy released when it went from 1 bat to 400 bar in a millisecond would of destroyed anything inside.

I was surprised at how big the bits of debris were, I was expecting it to have basically disintegrated (aside from the metal end caps etc). There seems to be recognisable parts left, including control structures and the like.

My guess would be that the larger debris is from the outside of the pressure hull, skid rails, covers, thrusters etc.

It turns out NASA did do some work on submarine designs of this type back in the 90’s.  The reports are in the public domain.  They tested to distruction a smaller design but simular to the Oceangate sub, the failure mode was a fibre buckeling on the inner surface of the centre of the CF tube.  Given the images of the recovered parts it’s not unreasionable to assume the same failure has happened here.  Both Ti end rings were recovered without obvious damage, the largest single part should be the CF tube however all they unloaded from the ship was a ‘bag’ which I assume contains the recovered fragments of the carbon pressure tube.

I also found it interesting that the NASA study observed that there was more noise on the initial pressure cycle than later cycles.  This suggestes that the ‘real time acoustic monitoring’ was probably ineffective at detecting fatigue damage.  In my day job I distructively test fibre ropes and I see the same, samples make a noise initially when loaded, then settle down, then only make a noise again moments before failure.

The window is mostly held in by external pressure, it would surprise me if it stayed in place during such a violent event, the fact that it’s not in the recovered dome doesn’t mean it was the cause.

One horible detail that occures to me is that during implosion the air will have gone from 1 bar to around 350 bar in a fraction of a second.  That means a significant temperature increase.  When today’s news says they may have ‘human remains’ I doubt it’s anything like a recognisable body.

There is talk of human remains being found. This is against what plenty of internet “commentators” stated was possible. Apparently the amount of energy released when it went from 1 bat to 400 bar in a millisecond would of destroyed anything inside.

They may both be correct. ‘Remains’ in this case may refer to a thin veneer of human mince…

There seems to be recognisable parts left, including control structures and the like.

One of the promo videos shows it without its outer white casing on. At the back outside of the pressure capsule there was quite a framework containing a whole bunch of gear. Looks like it is that which has come up in mostly one piece.

My guess would be that the larger debris is from the outside of the pressure hull, skid rails, covers, thrusters etc

Yes, the pressure hull will have collapsed and anything inside it pulverized, but the stuff outside it should be reasonably intact.

Thanks, that makes more sense now.

There is talk of human remains being found

Every report I’ve see says “assumed” human remains. So whatever is left after making people soup – bits of bone and teeth?

Apparently the amount of energy released when it went from 1 bat to 400 bar in a millisecond would of destroyed anything inside.

According to Scott Manley (his ‘Live’ YouTube video “Under Pressure” is well worth a watch) the energy within 1 cubic meter of air is the equivalent of about 2Kg of TNT.  There was approximately 5cuM of air in the capsule so when that was rapidly compressed* it would have been like having 10Kg of TNT set off in that tiny space…. in his words “raspberry jam”!

* Think of it like a diesel engine – as the air in the cylinder gets compressed it heats up until it goes bang!  This is the same but on a larger scale.

the “they have more money than me so they must be evil” attitude that is the essence of the STW forum is getting tiring, not least because everyone is very quiet about e-bikes costing £12k+, or the ongoing craze of coughing up £60k on a VW tin tent.

Very much this unfortunately.

the energy within 1 cubic meter of air is the equivalent of about 2Kg of TNT.

At 3000 meters, a one square meter area has 3000 tonnes of water above it. If you have a 1 meter cube, you’re talking about a force of about 30 000 000 Newtons over one meter when it collapses, so that’s 30 MJ. One gram of TNT is about 4 kJ, so that’s about 7.5 kg of TNT per cubic meter at that depth, if my maths is correct. If I’ve made a mistake in the calculation, happy to be corrected

* Think of it like a diesel engine – as the air in the cylinder gets compressed it heats up until it goes bang!  This is the same but on a larger scale.

diesel engines max cylinder pressures are around 200bar these poor souls experienced about 400bar

edit add – sorry i dont know how to quote properly.

edit edit, i think i fixed it

Human toothpaste, is the gruesome phrase that springs to mind with things like the Byfield Dolphin incident. 🙁

So with the forces being described its strange that they are saying human remains have been found.

If the tub had imploded that woukd imply you wouldnt find bits of human, so did the sub actually loose pressure near the surface and then sink to the bottom? But then that wouldnt give the noise of an implosion that was heard.

I’m going to teeth, bone fragments and maybe some goo, nothing more than that

Bit ghoulish this. It’s only correct that investigators report evidence of human remains but not sure of the value of speculating what these are on the basis of the physicality of the event.

But ghoulish this. It’s only correct that investigators report evidence of human remains but not sure of the value of speculating what these are on the basis of the physicality of the event.

There is no real value of any discussion on here about any part of the event.

However, morbid curiosity is part of human nature, that’s why there is so much stuff involving murder in the media, both fiction and non-fiction. I currently watching the Hannibal TV series on Netflix. Millions have also done so. If that’s not morbid curiosity what is?

I’ll be honest, I asked the question on here a few days ago about what would be left of the victims and knew it was a bit morbid. However, it’s the curiosity of the forces and speed of the event, which for me, are beyond imagination.

One engineer on the internet thought that due to the heat generated by the immediate pressure increase would of incinerated the victims as well as crushing them. This would appear not to be the case.

There is no real value of any discussion on here about any part of the event.

However, morbid curiosity is part of human nature, that’s why there is so much stuff involving murder in the media, both fiction and non-fiction. I currently watching the Hannibal TV series on Netflix. Millions have also done so. If that’s not morbid curiosity what is?

Objectively I prefer the instantaneous to slow drowning or 101 other ways.

Slightly off topic perhaps but When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthorpe is extremely interesting on the subject of recovering human remains after disasters.

She points to the Lac-Megantic rail disaster as being a best practice re recovery of remains.  As that was in Canada its entirely possible that some of the same team are involved in any recovery of human remains  – however small they may be.

however small they may be.

Good luck with that, 4000m down with a ROV manipulator.

every piece of wreckage brought up will likely be examined to see if microscopic bits of human tissue or fabrics have been forced into it by the force of the implosion, if any is found they will be separated out, identified via DNA and returned to the families.  Thats if the Lac-Megantic principles are followed

One engineer on the internet thought that due to the heat generated by the immediate pressure increase would of incinerated the victims as well as crushing them. This would appear not to be the case.

I don’t think the internet engineer is all wrong, the implosion will have heated the air in the sub.  So for a fraction of a second the air in contact with (including in the lungs) the crew will have crazy hot – perhaps over 1000 deg C.  This won’t have lasted long though as the crushed hull, crew and water will have mixed and cooled in a few hundredths of a second.  It’d be like being in contact with white hot metal for a fraction of a second, burns, but only on the surface.

As some other posters have pointed out the ‘remains’ are probably just some organic material found on the fragments that can be analysed.

The only thing that keeps coming back to me thinking about this is that a child went down there to please his dad and complete his Rubix cube at the bottom of the ocean to set a world record.

@soundninjauk. Insightful article, thanks for posting a link

The only thing that keeps coming back to me thinking about this is that a child went down there

TBF he was 19 but the rest of your post still stands.

Really don’t understand all this stuff about recovering remains. Fair enough investigating the wreckage and cause of the vessel failure, but scraping bits of fat off it and DNA testing it just seems a bit pointless. It’s not like they need identifying is it?

TBH its closure for the families, they’ll have something they can bury.

And obvs part of the thorough accident investigation.

scuttler
Full Member
Bit ghoulish this. It’s only correct that investigators report evidence of human remains but not sure of the value of speculating what these are on the basis of the physicality of the event.

I can’t remember ever seeing the word “assumed” being used in front of “human remains” before, then take into account that they had the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower dropped on them. I feel for anyone that is of the thinking that there might be some ‘normal’ remains being brought to shore

TBH its closure for the families

I doubt a few grams of organic material will provide that. Maybe they should ask them (maybe they have already)? I know what my response would be.

Respect for the dead and for the material scientists who are going to be analysing the mechanical remains of the wreck.

TBH how many sub implosions have actually occurred ,wasn’t the Byford Dolphin the worst ever diving accident(and not  an implosion thou)

TBH I’d have thought the Kursk probably was  (350 feet deep) but again not an implosion.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I’ve said to friend that with such a sudden event, they are basically gonna have been instantly turned to fish chum.</p>