Beyond Titan - physics and the deep sea

[TokyoStories]

Continuing our crash course in all things deep-sea.

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Why does something need to be on the outside of it? As far as I understand, the white carbon fibre material - discards from Boeing, too out-of-date to be used for aircraft it is said - is what you see from the outside. Google image search it.

I'm not saying anything does.
But was there?

I don't build experimental submersibles! But as far as I understand, no.

Best diagram I have found of the thing so far (FT)

Thanks that is very clear

Carbon fibre is grey/black by nature. A thin plastic skin for logos and aesthetics is normal as you can't paint it in this situation.

There is a nice clear picture of it in this article that shows the basic shape:

Titanic sub latest: Presumed ‘human remains’ found as first photos show mangled Titan debris recovered from sea floor | The Independent

Poor man. I read he made it his mission to go into university's and do talks on ethics and safety of engineering.
Just imagine how that guy feels who advised Stockton on how the structure wouldn't withstand the pressure. He may feel partly responsible that he didn't push it more.
It just baffles me that Stockton thought it was safe enough.

That's interesting - I've read before that of all animals pig flesh is closest to human flesh (and there are apparently a number of anatomical similarities, too, which aren't present in other animals - I think separate vaginal and urethral openings was one of them IIRC, but I may have misremembered)

I hope it was dead before they sent it down!

It just baffles me that Stockton thought it was safe enough.

He didn't, hence the 'acoustic warning system' comprised of microphones listening for the hull losing structural integrity.

It now seems that system failed as any warning it gave was far too late to do anything except cross fingers and hope for the best.

The structure without the white skin would be entirely dark grey. The structural components that make up the pressurised capsule are all dark grey (titanium and carbon fibre).

I think someone mentioned upthread (or up one of the threads anyway) that another of the factors that influenced his choice was that there weren't any regulations covering carbon fibre at depths (so - steel, titanium etc has to be of certain quality, certain thickness, inspected at particular intervals etc) and this made it more attractive from his perspective because nobody could say it wasn't up to scratch (I am putting this very crudely, but that is the gist of what I understood).

He also allegedly got it cheap because it was out-of-date (apparently carbon fibre degrades) and was of no use to the airline - wouldn't pass their safety regs.

I hope this isn't true, but he seems to have been so lax, who knows.

So do I!

I watched a video of the carbon fibre being wound around the cylinder of the Titan (looked like a giant Vetrap bandage) and it was black. The white bits with the company branding must have been a second skin.

Interesting that they covered up the Oceangate branding as they pulled it out.

You can get it in black, grey, or white.

@MavisMcMinty Interesting that they covered up the Oceangate branding as they pulled it out.

I wonder if they're trying to preserve it for forensic reasons, in case it's (ridiculously) claimed that the pieces don't come from the Titan? I'm struggling to think of reasons.

Footage of Titan being assembled shows the carbon fibre tube very clearly as being dark grey!

Okay.

I was wondering if something had adhered to that piece and the covering is to preserve it in place.

I don’t think they deliberately covered up the branding. They seemed to be trying to cover up all of the pieces as they were unloaded (out of respect for the dead?), with varying degrees of success depending on the size of the sheets they had.

Possibly that piece had a hole in it that they wanted to cover to ensure it wasn’t eroded further?

Whats the point in having microphones listening for the structure losing integrity because it would be too late by the that point right?
And if he didn't think it was safe why on earth would he risk other people's lives

Some of the wrapping may be to protect the evidence but It’s pretty common to see logo’s/branding very quickly painted out or otherwise obscured in aircraft accidents where the airframe is truely farked but remains visible to the public (e.g. serious overrun accidents at airports).

It’s quite possible some of the tape/covering is simply done to achieve that…