Comments by "Tx240" (@Texas240) on "FOX 13 Seattle" channel.

  1. Another important difference between aviation and submersible use is that the pressures are much greater going down. So, not only is the carbon fiber weaker under compression, it's also being subjected to more compression in the submersible application than it is subjected to expansion in the aviation application. And then there's the issue of whether the manufacturer used any aluminum fasteners or connectors or in other non structural points, instead of titanium, to save cost. Aluminum will steal molecules from carbon fiber, if touching, causing it to deteriorate. As much as the guy was harping on needing something cheaper and lighter than titanium, I'd bet there's aluminum in that Titan design instead of steel or titanium.
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  2.  @SJR_Media_Group  - Everyone that Ocean Gate mentioned is scrambling to say, "we didn't design it" or "we didn't build it."
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  3. Carbon fiber hull? At 14k feet deep? 375 times normal atmosphere pressure? No thanks. That hull shattered as it imploded. There's nothing left to recover and it wasn't safe for repeated use. The problem with their whole "real time monitoring of hull integrity" is bunk if the hull is going to spontaneously fail. It's not like Star Trek, where hull integrity is 90%, 85%, 80%, ALL POWER TO STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY! Nope, carbon fiber is the wrong material for a vehicle that will be exposed to compression forces...and I suspect that they used aluminum in non structural parts of the vehicle to save cost without regard for the fact that galvanic corrosion will cause both the aluminum and carbon fiber to degrade as the carbon fiber composite steals electrons from the aluminum.
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  4. Just remember, far more teens are injured and eliminated in vehicle incidents than firearms incidents with vehicles being a leading cause of elimination for people under 18. If we're SERIOUS about saving lives, we want to pick the low hanging fruit. We need more car control.
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  5.  @faded6089  - Thanks for the comment and opportunity to clarify my previous. There's another comment where someone who is an engineer explains that carbon fiber is a great material to use in aircraft because it is strong under expansion pressure, which is the condition it sees when an airplane cabin is pressurized to greater than the outside atmospheric pressure at cruising altitude. He went on to explain that carbon fiber is weak to compression forces which is what it will experience when used as a pressure hull in a submersible vessel. I did a quick search to corroborate his statements and then am passing on the word. The part about galvanic corrosion, carbon stealing electrons from aluminum, I knew about because I'd seen it happen in modified car culture where carbon fiber hoods were failing and flying off because they were installed with aluminum hood fastening pins and looked up the condition (which also affects non noble metals on boats parked in salt water, and can be an issue in aircraft that mix carbon and aluminum). I don't know how the sub was built, but when I saw an interview with ocean gate guy from a couple years ago and he mentioned needing cost efficient vehicle, substituting aluminum for titanium was the first thing that came to mind. Titanium won't interact with carbon fiber but it's more expensive. If aluminum was used in the sub, it could've caused segregation to the carbon fiber pressure hull. Combine that with what our engineer explained about the weakness of CF under compression. Even without aluminum and galvanic corrosion, each submersion and surfacing cycle causes the CF to compress and expand. That will degrade the material. Add a lighting strike that fried some of the on board electronics and that particular sub was a ticking time bomb painted in red flags. My "intelligence" is just life experience and looking into a broad range of subjects as I come across things I don't understand or that interest me and of which I want to learn more. This incident bothers me because I'm very much against "Millennial Think". That's my term for the currently pervasive concept that if a person is allowed to do something that thing must be safe (like play on a padded playground or ride a carbon fiber sub down to 375 times normal atmospheric pressure or drive a car, even).
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