James Cameron on Submersible Vessel Design

[Christian Williams]

I have a personal beef with carbon fiber, namely my twice-busted whisker pole. Busted under benign condition with no obvious explanation, but thousands of cycles on the open ocean.

Many of us here have natural interest in properties and materials, and I was surprised to find Cameron seem knowledgeable, experienced and persuasive. The fatal design was a typical spun carbon fiber cylinder, with titanium end caps. Cameron--well, I listened carefully.

It was interesting to me how newscasters carefully unmentioned the probable obvious: that there was from the beginning no possible hope of rescue unless the vessel was found on the surface, where simple GPS would have immediately identified it for retrieval. I think was was a correct reading of the public mood for hope, but sorta flew in the face of the evidence.

Anderson Cooper can be a good interviewer, regardless what otherwise may not appeal. Carbon fiber discussion starts about 05:30.

 

[Bolo]

It seems that the big problem here was OceanGate’s methods in development and testing of the Titan. Will Kohnen, chair of the Marine Technology Society's Submarine Committee was quoted in an NPR article about the disaster. "Most of the companies in this industry that are building submersibles and deep submersibles follow a fairly well-established framework of certification and verification and oversight, through classification societies," he said. "And that was at the root of OceanGate's project, is that they were going to go solo, going without that type of official oversight, and that brought a lot of concerns."

There is are numerous good reasons for critical review in the scientific and engineering world by peers for projects like the Titan. It seems that OceanGate was trying to fast track their design and were possibly blind to its fatal flaws that are now yet to be discovered or ever since the evidence is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

 

[bgary]

Another interesting take from Cameron. A little self-aggrandizing, but that doesn't make it invalid.

 

[gabriel]

The properties of carbon fiber are well known and studied (well enough that the material is certified for use on airplane fuselages). The failure point is ultimately the engineering team: either out of ignorance or wishful thinking they chose to apply carbon fiber in an improper manner and the results were deadly. I believe the owner believed in the vessel as he wouldn’t have been inside if he had any doubt.

an interesting analysis: