Comments by "Tx240" (@Texas240) on "Scott Manley"
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This design was eventually going to fail regardless of anything else simply because carbon fiber being compressed and then stretching back out is applying fatigue each time. Carbon fiber isn't like steel, aluminum, or titanium in that those materials can be tested by non destructive methods to asses their condition.
Carbon fiber has to be cut into, or destroyed, to truly asses the condition of the material. The Titan had that experimental electrical conductivity method that Rush hoped would indicate if the CF was deteriorating. The problem is that even if that device worked (and based on Rush's other decisions, it's likely it was just smoke and mirrors for customer peace of mind), if you detect a problem at depth, you can't do anything to avoid what happened.
The Navy wanting to use a material that's guaranteed to fail and can only be properly assessed by destroying it doesn't surprise me. Total waste of money even experimenting with it. You'd have to build, test, and destroy enough full size models to determine a safe replacement interval and then replace the carbon fiber segment well before the required replacement interval (before the failure point) to account for variance.
On a sub that goes down and up much more often than the sight seeing vessel, it's just dumb to even play with CF. It's a waste of money experimenting (remember, this is taxpayer money that could be spent on proven military systems like the littoral combat ships...oh, wait... Or schools, roads, reduced taxes, etc) and a waste of money if they actually try to build one (see the failed LCS program and failed Zumwalt program).
The US Navy, for all their cost cutting (including slimming of the USMC's mission and capabilities) is EXCELLENT at wasting money on things that are guaranteed to not work.
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