Corrections: I keep referring to carbon fiber composite as ‘RCC’. Oops. RCC is a different carbon composite that was used on the Shuttle thermal protection system. The acronym is clearly stuck in my head from the video I made on that.
You should check out a few composite bike frames that were built in Vancouver buy a designer called Brett Trimble. One I encountered was a monocoque road frame where the front triangle was an enclosed Wing structure with small access hatchways in it put there so you can access cables and other things. The back was just a pair of wings connected at the change Staybridge the seat Staybridge and the axle with the wheel almost fully aerodynamically enclosed. Is mountain bike frame though was a thing of beauty. It was a monocoque tube connecting the head tube to the rear with masts for the seat post add bottom bracket. Klein the famous aluminum bike builder came up with a full suspension design
Personally i think the focus on the window is a complete red herring. It's not a part that should have the same kind of progressive failure issues as the hull, so if it made it through the first few dives with no damage or other issues, then barring damage to it in handling of some kind it should have been fine. Honestly whilst i suspect it was fitted with the underrated window at some point, i strongly suspect it was replaced before the first deep dive, the difference in load is so large i'm not convinced the safety factor on the window design would have been enough if it hadn't been swapped. But equally if it was understrength enough to fail it would have failed the first time they went that deep. EDIT: I'd also note not all the dangers where known, or accounted for during apollo, the intensity and danger of solar flares wasn't truly grasped until the later skylab mission. It's the big standout safety issue with Artemis. If it goes ahead as planned and goes on for a significant period of time as NASA wants then eventually they're going to lose a crew to one of those flares. Most of the Mars proposals have similar issues.
@@darthkarl99 I think future long duration mission will have space ships outfitted with a safe room to retreat to when a CME or solar flare occurs. Many designs use the potable water tanks to shroud that safe room. Water is a surprisingly good moderator. Gamma rays arent eliminated but greatly reduced, to survivable levels with the corresponding exposure time. But yes, some one who has been to Mars , and back... will likely not be allowed to make the trip again. Purely due to maximum life dose.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 I've seen those and none have had anything close to the kind of shielding needed to handle a worst case solar flare, (which is mostly particle not gamma radiation). For that you need the equivalent of several feet of soil. And for long duration missions the long term background dose is a really really huge issue: "Included in the cosmic rays are substantial numbers of iron nuclei totally stripped of electrons. When a fully ionized iron nucleus is traveling at less than half the speed of light, its ionizing power is several thousand times that of an ordinary proton. Passage through the body of a single iron nucleus destroys an entire column of cells along its path. The total amount of energy which the particle dumps into the body is small, but it is highly concentrated. This radiation can not only increase the risks of cancer, it can provide pathways of damaged or dead cells along which the cancer can spread and grow. The iron nuclei do even more. They destroy nerve cells in the brain and spinal column which cannot reproduce themselves. Once the cells are dead, they can never be replaced. Studies of Apollo astronauts indicate that on their two-week lunar voyages, they may have lost as much as one ten-thousandth of their nonreplaceable neurons. Under such conditions after several years in space, the loss could reach several percent."
What was craziest to me about the hearing was that the monitoring system actually WORKED. Their insane approach of not testing to destruction and relying on acoustic/strain monitors to tell when the structure was deforming gave them plenty of warning. The leadership just ignored it, because it probably would've meant that the company would fold.
Right? Craziest thing to me was it wasn’t “real time” tho. They had to analyze the data after the dive, which was wild to me. It was literally just to placate the passengers and investors. 😮
One of the ex Oceangate employees at the hearings said something along the lines of them counting the total number of ‘hits’ (ie fiber breakages) over a dive. But they didn’t keep track of the total over the lifetime of the vessel. He also said Rush insisted there was no audio alarm for a critical number if breakages (im not sure how they defined ‘critical’). So I suspect the entire system was just part of the sales pitch and didn’t really serve a practical purpose.
If they would have tested to destruction, it would have been harder to ignore the signs. Regardless of whether the system provided the info they needed, a They didn't recognize what it was telling them. If the failure had been on a test dive, it would have imploded unexpectedly, like it did. And then they would likely have gone over all the data and saw exactly what the early signs of failure looked like. Yes, the early signs of failure were visible, but it might well be missed if you have never seen it before. I suspect no one actually knew what early signs of failure looked like on the hull monitoring system until AFTER it happened. If you had looked at that data BEFORE the failure, you might strongly suspect something is wrong. You'd be right. A proper safety program would review the data every dive. But I suspect he would have just explained it away. "It'll be fine" But even if they had seen the signs, there the question of how much degradation is acceptable. It comes down to something else he didn't know. How many dives is the vehicle good for. It's a finite number. Is it 1? 2? 100? The only way to know that is to implode at least one. Actually, you'd probably want to start with lab testing, then move to imploding small pressure vessels deep in the ocean then once you feel you understand how carbon fiber submersibles fail, dive a real one again and again until it fails. Then see if the hull monitoring sensors tell you what you thought they should. If not, figure out why not and repeat.
It worked but they weren't looking at the data in a way that would make the issues obvious. As far as the could tell everything was fine over repeated dives. IIRC the issue was they were plotting the data versus time, not depth. Doing the latter showed very clear and concerning anomalies. I believe Scott Manley discussed this in _OceanGate Wreck Shows Why Sub Wasn't Strong Enough To Survive - NTSB Shares Important Details._
If they had had 1000s of sensors and testing as per standard (which would not have taken that much extras) and a clean production and some materials experts ON the team etc. But none of that is what happened. And that goes for every single aspect of the organisation
I was dismissive of the real time monitoring system too but I saw the testimony that said there were abnormalities after one of the dives had an abnormally large sound when they were coming back up. A youtube vid I watched showed the graph of subsequent dives and how the hull was reacting differently. I believe the real time monitoring system even disproved Stockton's theory for the loud sound as he said it was just the metal structure moving slightly over the exterior of the pressure vessel when in reality, the RTM data showed an increase in hoop strain right when that loud bang was picked up by the piezo sensor. It is absolutely nuts that they had all the data to verify the hull was compromised and they either never checked it or just sat on it. All they needed was the data from the dive after that loud sound to verify and yet, they took several more dives after that. There's not a doubt in my mind that Stockton at least suspected that the hull was compromised. The more I hear about it, the more it seems like they were about to go bankrupt so he was just ignoring all the problems cause he didn't have the resources to fix them.
Well, it wasn't really a _real time_ monitoring system, since it just spat out data that had to be imported into a spreadsheet. But yeah, if they'd actually fed the sensor data into a real time monitoring system, it could have picked out the sudden shift that accompanied the bang as well as discrepancies in how the hull responded to pressure afterwards. That would have been enough to flag the hull as unsafe for continued use without inspection. Of course, that's just one data point. Destructive testing of more hulls is needed to determine if the system is actually useful, but one "success" is more promising than I expected.
@@SnakebitSTI There was nothing stopping them from having it be Real Time except Stockton himself. They did some 5 dives after the hull was failing, they had plenty of data on hand.
Yes, and that's what makes the whole thing even worse for me. I learned so much over the last few weeks and that they actually should have seen it coming makes me even more sad.
@@vastaria5247 There certainly does seem to be a scenario for Rush to end it this way, as the vessel he was so proud of was clearly failing, proving all his theories and claims wrong. Add to that the fact that Oceangate did do well financially and that scenario only gets to be more likely. "Go out with a bang instead of a whimper" might have been on Rush's mind, but we'll never know for sure.
13:49 Scott Manley's recent Titan video discusses how the flat back to the window may have resulted in stress concentration. It also discusses how the monitoring system may have actually detected the onset of nonlinear stress-strain response of the hull during a previous dive, but this was not acted upon.
Huh so it does. Looks like I missed that video. I listened to the hearing session with the NTSB guy who spoke about the viewport when I was out for a run so I might not have absorbed all the detail there either.
@@anrit5972Rewatch this video if that's your takeaway. Carbon fiber is okay, when used right. Cylinder vessels are also fine, when used right. The problem of Ocean Gate is not knowing how to use these things right, yet pretending they did, and convinced the tourists that they did.
I was discussing Oceangate with my wife recently (many hours driving and I strive to entertain her) and opined that there were likely lots and lots of engineers all excited about the prospects of making a DSV out of carbon fiber BECAUSE of the way it failed. The early warning system worked like a charm, despite no one thinking there'd be any warning at all. DESPITE the amazingly shitty way they fabricated the cylinder, with all the dirt, dust, air pockets, poor section adhesion, absolutely laughable way they decided to glue the rings on, etc., etc., etc., that damn thing went down to the Titanic on multiple occasions. Imagine if you weren't a narcissistic know-it-all (clearly suicidal) billionaire and actually gave a damn about safety and did the fabrication under conditions that wouldn't wind up with all those defects, what could _that_ hull do? It may be a while before anyone will want to attempt to replicate with actual humans, but I imagine people are already fabricating such things as I type these words.
Yeah, as I said in a separate comment, there really is no problem with building subs (or anything else for that matter) in the name of innovation. Build them out of wood for all I care. Just properly test the thing before. Have multiple engineers looking at it. Don't let profit guide the decision making that should be led by science.
@@mitakeet yeah, which I think I agree was the main guide for Stockton's actions. I will add though that I see many people around the comments of videos like this diagnosing the guy as a narcissist but I really don't think people understand how easy it is for a human brain to delude itself into believing his own hype. From everything I've seen that seems to be the actual cause of Stockton's ultimate doom, but I may be wrong.
@@gustavolopes5094 Dude put in an early working system _that worked_, but ignored the information! While I doubt he was intentionally suicidal, there's no doubt in my mind there was only one way for this to end: He would've kept pushing and pushing until the inevitable.
9:37 TLDR: Super-Kamiokande, Japan's renowned neutrino detector, features a massive underground tank holding 50,000 tonnes of water and lined with 11,200 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). These PMTs, each over 50 cm in diameter, are designed to detect faint flashes of Cerenkov radiation emitted when neutrinos interact with electrons in water. During maintenance, while the tank was being refilled, one PMT likely imploded, sending a shockwave that shattered 7,000 nearby tubes in a cascading failure. The large size of these PMTs, which enhances their sensitivity, may have also made them more fragile. Repair costs are estimated between $10 million and $30 million, drawn from other research budgets.
@@vylbird8014 it was in 2001... You can probably find out what they did to fix it. I do wonder if they needed to use the same fragile PMT's to match the remaining ones? 🤔
@@vylbird8014 They apparently used some sort of plastic cylinder around the sides of each tube to protect the sides from shockwaves. It seems to have worked.
Your thumbnail, showing the single point of failure, is a perfect summary of the entire situation. The number of things done incorrectly boggles my mind, and they were all done because of Stockton Rush.
@@Alexander-the-okI need to know - do you feel that way because it's a slideshow, or is it simply a comment in re: the quality of *this* slideshow? (Because, uh, the amount of Perun video watchtime I've accrued suggests that 'slideshow' is no hindrance to a good time in my book.)
The moment I heard it was a tourist sub, I knew there wouldn't be a rescue. I've read too many disaster stories with corner-cutting tourist vessels to have believed this was any way up to spec. And absolutely agreed on the ethics of climbing Everest, I'm from a very touristy city and know how a specific industry gets prioritized above residents who get priced out or have to work for the industry, serving rich visitors while never able to afford the same services themselves. For all the money poured into each ascent and hiring guides, imagine what could be done for the Sherpa population if that was invested instead into helping them.
"The point of failure was Stockton Rush". What an excellent assessment! I just read a great book "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande. It's not just about medicine, it's about why we fail in situations of great complexity, and how to avoid that. In the section on building, he writes about the Master Builder of the Middle Ages, and why that model is non-viable now. That's how Rush operated. I also liked your ending observations about giving phony titles to what are only rich tourists. I also get incensed at the phony labeling; it cheapens the hard work and sacrifice of those who really do earn those professional titles. Everest mountain climber....right. In too many of those cases, they were actually just part of the stuff that the sherpas dragged up the mountain.
@@alisonwilson9749 Master Builders built Notre Dame, St. Peter's Basilica, and the United States Capitol Building. All still standing, with their "bits" (despite a major fire in Notre Dame). You are missing the point: the complexities and advancements in all the aspects of building now mean it is impossible for any one person to master them, where even just over a century ago it was possible. Rush styled himself a "Master Builder" type, one who could oversee all aspects of the sub construction from architectural design to engineering specs to materials used, to actual construction,
I would say that, if anything, Oceangate's expeditions actually had negative scientific value since they were actively contributing to the degradation of all the environments they explored.
Yes, and not only because they failed. They dropped rusty weights all the time. I think the Titanic should at least be left behind as it is, if someone wants to visit it
@@copicgirl8057 That's actually something most submersibles that dive to Titanic do, there's a designated area/s away from the wreck your supposed to go to drop ballast.
Shoddy build, multiple dives, ignored the "sound monitoring" that clearly showed the fibers were failing, leave the craft in a parking lot in very cold temps, then tow it behind a ship in high swells so it gets some nice hard jolts, add to that they cheapened out on the titanium rings, making the lip too short, and you have pureed billionaires/millionaires. To me this was a murder/suicide case. Rush had no option but chance it because his company, and his "legacy" were on the line.
Also Oceangate was broke!! Stockton was in deep and yes i think he knew it would eventually fail and i dont think he cared. He was also very upset he couldn't be a pilot because of his vision. I think he had a death wish
@@Mr.Blonde92 agree completely. I have worked and lived the “fake it ‘til you make it” ethos popular in Silicon Valley and tech in general. I have come across my fair share of Stockton Rushes with more money than sense. Sure, in some cases it works, whether by luck, talent, or because the right people are onboard at the right time. In most cases it doesn’t. What happens is that the product doesn’t sell, the company either vanishes or they sell their IP to a bigger, but equally deluded company, and the cycle goes on. In Oceangate case, the results were more dramatic than most, but also Rush had the benefit of multiple experts telling him that his ideas were faulty, but he ignored them and even mocked them or sued them into oblivion. In his case it was a “fake it ‘til you implode”. I am convinced that way in the back of his mind he knew the outcome was more than possible, even inevitable, but decided to take the risk anyway. And now he has killed another 4 people and traumatized countless others.
@@PamelaContiGlass he was storing the titan in a parking lot in the winter and it wasn't even covered, like wtf? Then the huge bang they heard on the titan while coming back to the surface on dive 80 i think it was, yea he knew it would fail eventually its just sad he took 4 other people with him including a kid
@@golddragonette7795yup, mass graves almost always have massively fucked up reasonings behind their creation, usually always genocide, war crimes or some other human rights abuse
@@PlayingGilly next decade there would be a millionaire running a service to visit the wreckage of the Titan with an oil drum with plexiglass lid Let's call it Tit
As a composite tech (Northrop Grumman Airbus A350 XWB -900 and -1000), I was taught The same. Composites are worse in compression, but normally, there are more ply's on the compression side to give some extra oomph and thickness. As for expiration, it's the resin that expires if it doesn't cure in 'X' amount of time. Wet winding doesn't really expire since the resin is mixed just before winding and fibers go into the wet resin bath just before being wound onto the tool(mold). So the expiration is how long the resin bath can be used before needing to mix a new batch. Only prepreg (Carbon fiber with resin already in the material) expires due to the resin. Prepreg needs to be in a freezer and is only good for about 1,000 hrs in 5 degrees f. once out of the freezer, it's about 150hrs. before the roll is bad.
Thanks for the explanation of resin expiry. For those who don't follow Oceangate closely, the first hull was wet wound, the second hull, the one that imploded, was all prepreg.
Wet epoxy has a use by date as well and just like prepreg its lifespan depends on how good storage conditions are. I have used and tested lots of out of date epoxy materials and they seem to be fine if carefully stored and not far out of date.Just like a pint of milk really,carefully examine it,smell it and don’t give it to elderly or vulnerable people.Life supporting critical structures are are not a suitable application.
@@Sableaglewell that’s the problem In the conditions that you describe,it would be obviously fucked.That’s why it has a conservative safety margin built into the storage limits, and you must be aware that you are gambling a bit after that. It’s quite complicated because you have to account for the time it’s not in the freezer,known as “outlife” things like very careful defrosting to avoid moisture.
@@SableagleI have to say that I don’t think out of date materials had very much to do with the failure. The finger is pointing squarely at processing and by extension testing whatever quality you have managed to achieve.
As someone who made it to your wall of shame in the beginning, thanks for the video. I feel vindicated that, by judging from listening to the hearings, the actual story was far more interesting then the simplistic one. Yes, they didn't inspect the hull at all as it was 'complicated' to remove it from the sleeve, bizarrely not even after they had major acoustic event during one of the last dives. (there's some evidence based on their own acoustic monitoring data that this may have been a major delamination event. Both examining the hull and properly examining the data from AMS would likely reveal that the hull is done for) Yes, you are correct, adding the flat surface to the window did make it weaker as it focused the pressure into the corners instead of spreading it out evenly. This flat surface was also a reason why the company that made it refused (quite correctly) to certify it to more then 1300m without appropriate testing. Some other interesting points that came out during the hearing. Based on the presented requirements, it was practically impossible to class / certify the sub without astronomical costs. I think one of the requirements was to test 3 full hulls to depth of 24000m without failure, for example. Also, the USCG regulation only allowed to operate submersibles for passengers up to 150ft depth so the 'mission specialist' I suspect was both about experience and actually skirting regulations. Regarding the implementation of their safety management system, I think at some point this will be a perfect case study of how 'safety theater' looks like compared to actual safety management. I hope this will be a learning point because tons of operators of various kinds habitually engage in same fallacies as Rush did. I cringed when they described how sure, they had checklists, but if something on the checklist didn't work, Rush would make a call if they should go ahead or not... Come on. It seems to me that they simply didn't understand why certain things are done to ensure safety. And I think, currently, this is true for most of operators. People lack understanding of how and why safety management works and that imho leads to widespread noncompliance or just mechanically going through the motions without actually understanding why.
Ha good to see you back! ‘Safety theatre’ is a brilliant phrase. That’s exactly the term I was looking for but couldn’t quite find when writing the script.
Hello fellow commenter! Do you have any interesting resources for those who, like me, find the more complex story very interesting but have no time/will to delve into long hearings?
For those more interested in the Coast Guard hearings, Scott Manley has a great breakdown. An interesting point is that the flat inner surface of the window actually makes it WEAKER due to it concentrating stress at the inner edge.
Can't believe I not only missed Scott Manley's video before I made this, but also I listened to the NTSB engineer session while I was out for a run so clearly didn't take it in properly!
Yep, I saw that one too. And actually, nobody mentioned it anywhere, but on some of the videos recovering the remains of the titan, there is one scene, where they try to grab the rope to lift the front sphere, where the window was placed in. In the inside of the bow sphere you can see two very deep scratches in the titanium and the scratch marks definitely look like, the direction of force was from front to aft. And to scratch titanium like this, you need a tremendous force. Were shattered parts of the window driven into the metal, when it disintegrated with high speed?
14:38 for those that are curious, in the USCG hearing one engineer who was in correspondence with Rush did extensive modelling of this acrylic window shape. And in concave shapes, the stress is distributed equally along the inner surface, while this added material actually pushes the stress out and is concentrated on the edge where the acrylic window and the titanium dome are connected.
Thank you, my thoughts were on the same lines. A thickness that's uniform can be stronger than a greater but uneven thickness purely because uniformity means the stress is evenly distributed.
That tourist "astronaut" license is like the "Jay-Jay the Jet Plane" pilot license I had when I was 4 years old, but much more lame since it's for an adult.
I think the whole point of calling the passengers mission specialists is to avoid having to classify the sub, which AFAIK is legally required for carrying paying passengers.
I don't think - based on the hearings - classing the sub is legally required. However, if I understand it correctly, it's legally impossible to dive below 150ft in US territorial waters with paying passengers regardless.
Snarky comment about 10:50 : On the other side of the pond, we don’t need acoustic or strain sensors on our bridges-we have the memory of _Galloping Gertie_ to warn us to make more complete calculations. 😮
@@annafdd Oh boy does this bring back unpleasant memories. I was not aware of this bridge or its collapse, but the Oakland Bay Bridge very near me (connects Oakland to San Francisco) is a self-supported cable stayed bridge that had serious allegations against it during design and construction. The loudest critic was a talk radio host (and a good friend, who happened to have three graduate degrees in physics and EE from UC Berkley) who regularly put a Berkley structural engineer on the air complaining about how idiotic the design was. I think I’ve traveled over it three times and that’s probably twice too many.
Sub Brief did a pretty good commentary on the initial testimony and video out of the recent public inquiry, and he made sure to emphasize that whereas the front window of Titan fell off, that is far from typical; most submersibles are designed so that the front window doesn’t fall off at all!
I’m glad that someone finally addressed the “carbon fiber in compression” stuff. Yes, it’s often weaker in compression than tension, usually anywhere from 5-50%, depending on the exact material constituents, interphases, geometries, and stacking sequences. I find it kind of ridiculous that something I learned in an intro to materials class (fibers take majority of the load, in compression or tension), in my first year at college. But, I’m also biased, because I’ve built a student career in composites, hopefully soon to be a professional one, haha. Good video, glad you made it, but I will also be glad to never talk about Titan again. Just a quick note about expired carbon, aircraft manufacturers are held to incredibly tight specifications/regulation when using composite materials. Often prepreg, they have a certain shelf life at refrigeration temp, and and certain outlife when then need to, say, pull out a roll, and cut some plies from it. A lot of FSAE, and college teams get the “expired” stuff that will cure fine, perform fine in most cases, but not something I’d want to use for human rated hardware like this at all.
I have become fascinated with this subject. I can honestly say, I haven’t seen a fairer summation of this incident. I also can’t help feeling that Rush was an example of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome at work. Pity so many “mission specialists” were sucked in by him
19:45 I disagree. Titan's high profile failure has had a lot of scientific value, if only because it generated a lot of interest in why it was such a horrible thing to do.
As one whose job and field of interest is airline aviation, the bit that really got my attention was during the 11th minute when it was mentioned that Rush was “a single point of failure” for the Titan and OceanGate. Do you know why every airline flight has at least two pilots on board and in control of the aircraft at all times? (Lavatory breaks excluded of course.) So that there isn’t a single point of failure. If one pilot becomes incapacitated the other can still fly and land safely. It’s not as if the remaining pilot can just fly on to the intended destination, s/he has to declare an emergency and land immediately at the nearest airport. And this is after all the other precautions the aviation industry has taken. Airline pilots have to be within a certain age range with darned near perfect health. No major medical conditions such as diabetes are permitted and almost no medications are allowed. Harsh, but with the notable exception of modern Boeing, the aviation industry likes to eliminate as many sources of safety risks as possible so they try to reduce the risk of a pilot becoming too ill to fly as much as possible. The more I hear about Rush and OceanGate, the more surprised and disgusted I become.
I couldn’t agree more about this Boeing is a notable example of an aviation organisation that seems to prefer reducing safety to single points. My father is a GA pilot and I have many conversations with him about a lot of aviation topics and this is something that comes up constantly. We find a situation that has gotten to a single failure point and we point out all of the systems, policies, procedures and laws that already in place to ensure safety being ignored in so many incidents. He recently told me of the somebody’s or companies brilliant idea of reducing the number of pilots to one and relying on an ai copilot. And getting rid of the superfluous extra pilot. This made me so angry I couldn’t even answer with all the things that makes this a stupid and very dangerous idea. And I’m not against Ai in general. It’s the money cutting culture of removing all the barriers and protections that have been put in place so we don’t get to single point failures allowing history to repeat again and again. These things were written in human blood and is why aviation Is much safer than alot of other things. And I am a nervous flyer, so understanding this means I am ok flying because I know all the safety behind it. Edit: I am also baffled and disgusted by this ocean gate stuff because of it. As a lot of the things in aviation safety can inform underwater safety. But Rush and his hubris/arrogance just threw safety out the window.
@@jasminestanbury9693 Heh, funnily enough my long term BF is an airline pilot, a decent number of my friends are and I’m a ramper/aircraft cleaner. Their response (probably to the same article(s) you read) was unanimous and uncompromising. Bad idea that probably won’t be actually implemented in our lifetimes. The human factor can’t be removed entirely. Despite best efforts pilot incapacitation still happens occasionally. A Google search would probably show that it’s happened at least once or twice within the last few years. Until it can be proven beyond doubt that the “AI pilot” can think outside the box and show that it can be as adaptive to changing circumstances and be able to put different sources of information together into a coherent and workable plan as a human pilot, it won’t even be considered. In short, it would have to be as capable as a human pilot in first being able to identify and understand that the human pilot is incapacitated, call the cabin crew in to administer first aid, contacting and informing ATC and actually being able to plot the course and land the aircraft all on its own with no human intervention. As far as I know, Airbus has developed an experimental aircraft that can take information straight from the various sensors and take off, fly and land on its own but it’s just experimental and decades away from being implemented on any airliners. Bear in mind that I’m not a pilot myself so take anything I say with a grain of salt but from what I understand the autopilot in use today is actually rather stupid. It can’t keep up with rapidly shifting winds and can’t configure the flaps, lower the landing gear or control the rudder directly. Evidently it’s more akin to cruise control than something like a driverless car. While I don’t really have a problem with AI in general I’d never trust my life to one. I’d rather walk than get into a driverless car that I couldn’t override at will to drive myself, so I’d have to be at the wheel and monitoring the traffic anyway which defeats the point of having a driverless car. I’m not getting into a single pilot or pilotless airliner ever even if it becomes available during my lifetime. I didn’t bring it up in my last comment to keep it from being too long, but the other reason there’s at least two with a very shallow power dynamic is also so if one starts making mistakes or exercising poor judgment that could make the flight unsafe, the other is trained to call them out on it. Which actually also applies to Stockton Rush. Maybe if he had the equivalent of a first officer calling him out on his poor decisions and he actually listened, he would be alive today. The history of submersibles and submarines is as bloodstained as aviation. As my trainer put it… “The safety rules are written in blood. Be careful when thinking about cutting corners or bending the rules because it might just be that the next safety rule will be written with your blood.” Fair enough. I have no desire to be knocked onto backside due to jetblast or eaten by a jet engine. Safety rules are good.
Scott Manley made a really good video about newer data that came out about it, including showing exactly how the window was weakened, and how the acoustic monitoring system warned them 3 dives before the ultimate failure - but no one noticed, or they ignored it.
When I saw pictures of the carbon fiber cylinder, I thought it was a flywheel. I made the exact same size and shape using the same wet bath winding. The flywheels were sent to BP to get installed in vacuum chambers and spin up to 35,000rpm so when the powerplant gets heavy usage, the can use these flywheels to generate extra power during peak power usage to help with the load. These flywheels looked just like the one on Oceangate.
Tesla also wound carbon-fibre around its rotor because the force on the magnet can blow it apart. The point is; a flywheel are wound with carbon-fibre to ensure it doesn't blow apart due to centrifugal force at 35k RPM.
I watched your first Ocean Gate vid then lost track of this channel. Got recommended this one, glad to see your channel is still doing well. You came, you answered questions people had, and you carved out a little niche. Proud of you.
A Podcast? With slides? About engineering disasters? That will never take off. Next off, you're going to tell me that people will listen to a weekly powerpoint about military stuff and Emutopia vs. Kiwiland.
One point with the whole carbon fibre in comprehension thing is from my personal experience. Formula 1. The entire structure of those cars are made of the stuff including most importantly the rear wing which has pressures of (roughly) 2000N crushing it and the carbon that supports it all is only a couple millimetres thick also it undergoes massive changes in pressure as the car speeds up and slows down. Carbon fibre is awesome and like every material it all comes down to how you use it
I'll repeat what I said in the last video about this: I don't think Stockton "Captain Crunch" Rush hired young, unexperienced engineers as a costsaving measure. I think he did so because the guy was such a narcissist that he couldn't bear the thought of anyone talking back to him. As you said, older engineers are very blunt about their opinion, and are not afraid to say it or even whistleblow. My favourite analogy about the entire carbon hull thing: Pressurizing carbon fibre like this is like trying to play billiards with a rope instead of a cue. Edit: If you ever need someone to ask about chemistry for anything in your videos, you can ask me. Edit2: I'd like to add another example to the list of desasters caused by procedural fuckups. Oppau explosion, 1921: "Let's just shake loose these ammonium nitrate crystals from the piping using dynamite."
"Like trying to play billiards with a rope" like a rope cast in epoxy more like. You know you can actually buy carbon fiber pool cues? Anyway, as the video explains in the section titled 'Carbon fiber can't be used in compression' starting around 2:50, carbon fiber can be used in compression. If it couldn't, Titan would have survived zero dives. It's a clever little analogy which utterly fails to address the problems with Titan.
I think it was cost saving and narcissism. I worked, as a contractor, with a dozen venture capital funded start-ups in alternative fuels. I saw both behaviors many times. In some cases the companies were a mostly scams to milk investors, but Rush appears to have believed his own BS. 10 years later, none of these companies survive, but at least none of them killed their CEO or investors. Mother nature is b....
Guess what? those “young unexperienced” engineers are now the world’s most experienced engineers in building submersibles using carbon fibre… Stockton Rush would’ve been the most experienced (and was) but since he died in the accident, so now those that worked with him are now the most experienced… Note, this is not an opinion.
Yeah exactly. Every so often you'll see some internet comment hero claiming Rush was "woke" because he once spoke of not hiring "old white guys" to look good on 2010's era news. He just didn't wanna hire people who had the industry tenure and savings to call his bluff and walk if he threatened their jobs.
I like that you counteract "halo effect" bias with this video. Some people are very susceptible to it. Once one piece of information is bad, they paint everything bad. Suddenly all the materials are bad, and shape is bad, and people involved suddenly have ugly faces, and their IQ is zero, and somehow even their dog is also a murderhobo.
3:51 According to testimonies, there were deficiencies in the carbon fiber hull that dated back to the manufacturing process, though I'm not sure how significant of a factor it was when the sub imploded.
4:56 specifically during the wrapping of the carbon fiber as shown in this clip, they would shave off any wrinkles that formed during the wrapping of the hull. The carbon hull was made wth five(?) separate sessions of wrappinf and shaving. Scott Manley mentioned it in his video, I think.
Modeling of the flat-interior window has so far found that stress concentrates at the inner edge where it met the frame (whereas with the curved window the circumferential face sat flush). Cracks could form and propagate from there.
I haven't watched any of the previous oceangte videos but I clicked on this purely because I knew it'll be a long rant by a very passionate person based on the title alone
Something that continues to bug me is that this completely foreseeable, avoidable, narcissism-fueled negligent homicide is that it's only added to the weird, morbid fascination meets teenage fan club fog of myth about the ship. The site is a mass grave for innocent people who died in a horrific and painful manner, and there are thousands of such sites at the bottom of the world's oceans. If you're not going down there to acquire cutting-edge data, then you're going to gawk at death. If that's your thing, why not Wilhelm Gustloff, or the naval carnage at the bottom of Leyte Gulf? While none of these are supposed to be picnic spots, I can't understand why people have chosen this one ship as their shrine to tragic death in the grip of the indifferent waves. Plenty of other ships sank on their maiden voyage. Plenty of others have poignant survivor anecdotes and heartbreaking death tolls. Why does Titanic inspire such empathy and reverence (and desire to look upon the remains) instead of, say, the Dona Paz, or even more recently, MV Sewol? And what's with the romantic woo about Titanic that was around even before the most recent movie? There are countless stories of heroism and depravity, astonishing luck both good and bad, frozen children, honeymooning couples ripped apart, and every flavor of traumatic doom imaginable documented with other disasters. Titanic's story is awful and senseless, but it's not unique. Now that Titan has joined the story, there's even more 'unlucky stars' bs cooking up and people relishing the notion of a supernatural curse. Design problems and carelessness (with some help from a mountain of ice) sank the Titanic. Design problems and carelessness and inconceivable tons of water destroyed Titan. If there's a curse at all, it's feckless people in a big hurry to make money and get famous who don't think it's important to make sure the maths are right.
I guess the time period is the thing? The titanic sank near the beginning of the century, and that makes it somehow nostalgic in a way? Like how ppl feel about James Dean's death in present times, like a long lost thing
To be fair, America made the 1990 film. The three films we made about, all three were in black-and-white, one of them was the account of someone who was on the titanic, another was more of a "this is how it happened" film more than anything. Also, this is just my experience as a brit, but no one is obsessed with it. Maybe it's because of the turn of the century, but apart from learning about it in school [and hearing about the 1990 film], it's not a big thing. In america, though, it's different. I wouldn't know on that side, though
I suspect part of the romanticizing of the Titanic is because here in the States we have a very weird parasocial relationship with High Society (queue the old quote about the propensity of Americans to behave like we're all temporarily inconvenienced millionaires, just waiting for our ship to come in) and this was a catastrophe that happened to involve many of the wealthiest families of the time. As has been observed many times over the years, a lot of people who are fascinated with the Titanic have a lot in common with a sizeable minority of the Renaissance Faire, Steampunk, Neo-Victorian, and Neo-Confederate Civil War reenactor communities - there's a hell of a lot of middle-class folks here in the States willing to spend a lot of money because they're in love with imagining themselves as members of the social elite of their time of choice.
I think Kym Catterson is right when he said the carbon fiber hull came off the front titanium ring it was attached to. It would have been a bit like stepping on a Pringles can and the lid popping off. The front fell off, basically. This was due to the two materials behaving very differently when submitted to what the Titan was submitted to (that's a long list). The glue joint eventually gave way.
You can tell that's what happened by the buckled hull in the video. Even before they released the footage, I have seen simulation of that from various people. It makes me wonder if adding another titanium ring in the middle of the hull would have, at least, prolonged the life of the hull. To be sure, it was delaminating (that's what the "acoustic events" were)' but 2 shorter hulls could have been less likely to fail under stress. Then there is the idiotic idea of routing the edges of the hull to make it fit the rings. How do you make a brittle carbon fiber hull even more likely to fail? Shave a few mm from the edges. It was just shoddy workmanship. Even their 1/3 scale testing was all wrong. They tested to destruction and called it a day when it failed at depths slightly higher than titanic was. Instead of cycling the testing to simulate multiple dives and then test it to failure. This was hubris, bad engineering and desperation. R..ush knew that his craft was doomed, but didn't care, which is why he piloted it. I think he figured better turn into fish food than getting sued for everything he got.
Honestly thank you for making another video here. I know it's something you never intended to do, but you bring a care and understanding to things that's often missed elsewhere.
Carbon fiber bicycle existed for a long time and is mostly on compressive load, they're so strong, especially its forks, it's very thin but could carry so much more load than aluminium.
Titan was literally uncertifiable, for a purely technical reason. All the titanium spheres? They're built to fit inside the only tank in the world that can pressure test them to depth. You literally can't make them bigger, because otherwise they wouldn't fit and you'd need to design a new bigger pressure testing tank, a more expensive an exercise than creating any submarine. So Rush's sub can't be certified by anyone, literally because the facilities to experimentally certify the hull pressure don't exist for such a size of pressure vessel. I've heard very few if any UA-camrs ever explain this, only whine why he never got it certified. The excuse of "well nowhere exists to test it" doesn't sound good to the press either; but I'd argue it's marginally more acceptable than "I dun wanna"
Unbelievably great content. An in depth look at single points of failure, broken down to help better understanding of the complex formulas and methods used in solving very complex problems. Great vid.
Another contributing factor was the the dives were made, as far as I know, in an administrative void- there is no entity legally bound to certify commercial submersibles used on the high seas, and none with the power to enforce regulations there. I wonder if that will change by international treaty or something.
Brilliant again Alex! You give a master class on how to impartially analyse these kind of events with OG as the example. Thanks for making this and your other videos.
The monitoring system was useless. It would warn you of a failure before the implosion. Thats like trying to dodge a bullet by relying on the sound of the bang.
Well done. I mean, really well done! In this video you were fair, well balanced but you concluded with a devastating summation of Money Tourism - those who encourage it for their own purposes and all it stands for. Very impressive.
Yeah, you raise some _really_ good points. People want to pay for the prestige of the person who climbs Everest wanting the climb, but they neglect the fact that to truly want the climb means that there is no confirmed promise of prestige.
For the present time I think the safest & most economical method of exploring the ocean depths is with robotic deep sea vessels. I feel the same way about space exploration.
For deep sea exploration and research, (certified) crewed vessels are much much more valuable than robotic ones. And they are incredibly safe. Space exploration is an entirely different story. I’ll talk more about that in the future.
These OceanGate videos are like a cheat code on YT. I've yet to see one with less than tens of thousands of views. (I'm not complaining, this is a fascinating topic)
I am so happy I found your video today because I found you! Love your content thus, I can tell I won’t be disappointed🤷🏻♀️😁 this is just my type of channel, with a great host that challenges my brain/thoughts… I believe every day you should gain just a little bit more knowledge than the day before…So I wanted to thank you for sharing, your knowledge💜 Thanks again One last thought I used to sell that one bike in the early 90s and by the mid 90s carbon fiber was becoming a thing with bike frames so I’ve been around carbon fiber. I have a very visual mind and I could see carbon fiber with pressure against it and friction and so on and so forth I just don’t see why, why, why… or do I already know the answer to that and I shall not say that🤔
I have personally worked at the Hyatt Regency (Now called The Sheraton, and owned by Marriott) and you would be surprised at how many pilots come in to snap pictures in the lobby of "The Worlds Deadliest Hotel", i got constant questions from pilots when i worked there about the incident and it is genuinely creepy to wander around that building late at night, old creaky elevators, drafty high-rise windows, things that make people legitimately consider that it could be haunted (if you believe in that sort of thing). Of course, the staff decline to admit that its the same hotel, and even speaking about it is not encouraged, but i wouldn't be surprised if it became another one of these tourist destinations soon.
14:20 the scott manly video i watched on the failure showed some modeling that suggests the extra material makes the window a lot weaker since all the force gets focused on a single point instead of getting spread out
Stockton Rush or as I refer to him Dick Crush, was a narcissist. I'm sure the term Mission Specialist was to scape goat law's pertaining to sub diving rules. I agree with Carl Stanley's assessment of Dick Crushes state of mind. Frankly deep sea research and diving to the Titanic are two different functions altogether.
14:30 is a very unintuitive but very good point. Sometimes more material is not as strong because it can introduce stress accumulation points that aren't present with less material. Being a proper American, the place where I've heard of this is in firearms. In the 80s, Colt started trying to re-chamber their 1911 model pistol from .45 Auto to 10mm Auto. 10mm Auto is an extremely powerful cartridge compared to .45; it carries more energy hundreds of meters downrange than .45 has at the muzzle. That being the case, 10mm Auto started cracking the steel frames of the pistols after a much shorter lifetime than normal. What Colt figured out is that the frames tended to crack in one stress accumulation point. What they also figured out was that if you simply delete the material around that point by cutting a notch in the frame, the problem goes away and the lifespan of the pistol increases. If the material's not there, it can't fail. It sounds like some stupid logic, but it worked. They extended that modification to their normal models to the same effect.
I understand you were reluctant to make this video, and I wasn’t sure I needed another one on the topic when hitting “play”. It’s great, though, and I’m grateful for it and the thoughtful ending.
Turns out the acoustic listening system could actually be a decent safety system, if only as a warning system for material degradation. You just need to, like, actually check the data and take action based on it.
The interface between the flanges and carbon fibre looked like the weak link to me when I watched the construction video. Relying on an adhesive jointing compound to be the sole means of binding two different material types together rang alarm bells with me. The application of the glue using a roller ensured that a random thickness of the adhesive would be applied. Holidays, highs and lows as well as any airborne contaminants would all been present in and on both sealing faces. If a single drop of water happened to find its way through this joint a catastrophic failure would have soon followed. The initial drip of water may not of even needed to travel from the wet side to dry side, a void in the carbon fibre may have been enough. Personally I wouldn’t have risked standing under those end domes if they were glued onto a structure above me even though I know that buses are held together with similar products.
I share your contempt for calling space passengers astronauts. I'm a highly qualified technician with no degree, so I'm not an engineer. While I worked for a certain oil company you would all know, they changed my job title to engineer. I refused to sign that HR form. I refused to sign any single thing no matter how small while they had that title against my role. I was an area authority in their permit to work system so this caused significant disruption. They applied pressure and I resisted, I offered to take the title but only after I had completed the qualification and they paid for it all. Unsurprisingly they declined my offer. Lives depend on my work and the title of Engineer means something. It took nearly two weeks and they backed down. A year later I got a redundancy so they could slot in the pushover Engineer I disproved several times. I don't mind, If someone dies on that site it's not my fault.
That is a major issue with the UK oil and gas industry. Honestly it’s an issue with engineering in the uk as a whole (the title isnt protected like it is in other countries). I respect your integrity for holding your ground, I don’t think most would have done that.
That is a major issue with the UK oil and gas industry. Honestly it’s an issue with engineering in the uk as a whole (the title isnt protected like it is in other countries). I respect your integrity for holding your ground, I don’t think most would have done that.
![[REUPLOAD: IMPROVED AUDIO] Oceangate Titan: analysis of an insultingly predictable failure](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4eNm8vnKZ38/mqdefault.jpg)
![[REUPLOAD: IMPROVED AUDIO] Oceangate Titan: analysis of an insultingly predictable failure](/img/tr.png)
Corrections:
I keep referring to carbon fiber composite as ‘RCC’. Oops. RCC is a different carbon composite that was used on the Shuttle thermal protection system. The acronym is clearly stuck in my head from the video I made on that.
You should check out a few composite bike frames that were built in Vancouver buy a designer called Brett Trimble. One I encountered was a monocoque road frame where the front triangle was an enclosed Wing structure with small access hatchways in it put there so you can access cables and other things. The back was just a pair of wings connected at the change Staybridge the seat Staybridge and the axle with the wheel almost fully aerodynamically enclosed.
Is mountain bike frame though was a thing of beauty. It was a monocoque tube connecting the head tube to the rear with masts for the seat post add bottom bracket. Klein the famous aluminum bike builder came up with a full suspension design
Thanks!
RCC=Reinforced Carbon-Carbon
Personally i think the focus on the window is a complete red herring. It's not a part that should have the same kind of progressive failure issues as the hull, so if it made it through the first few dives with no damage or other issues, then barring damage to it in handling of some kind it should have been fine. Honestly whilst i suspect it was fitted with the underrated window at some point, i strongly suspect it was replaced before the first deep dive, the difference in load is so large i'm not convinced the safety factor on the window design would have been enough if it hadn't been swapped. But equally if it was understrength enough to fail it would have failed the first time they went that deep.
EDIT: I'd also note not all the dangers where known, or accounted for during apollo, the intensity and danger of solar flares wasn't truly grasped until the later skylab mission. It's the big standout safety issue with Artemis. If it goes ahead as planned and goes on for a significant period of time as NASA wants then eventually they're going to lose a crew to one of those flares. Most of the Mars proposals have similar issues.
@@darthkarl99 I think future long duration mission will have space ships outfitted with a safe room to retreat to when a CME or solar flare occurs. Many designs use the potable water tanks to shroud that safe room. Water is a surprisingly good moderator. Gamma rays arent eliminated but greatly reduced, to survivable levels with the corresponding exposure time. But yes, some one who has been to Mars , and back... will likely not be allowed to make the trip again. Purely due to maximum life dose.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 I've seen those and none have had anything close to the kind of shielding needed to handle a worst case solar flare, (which is mostly particle not gamma radiation). For that you need the equivalent of several feet of soil.
And for long duration missions the long term background dose is a really really huge issue:
"Included in the cosmic rays are substantial numbers of iron nuclei totally stripped of electrons. When a fully ionized iron nucleus is traveling at less than half the speed of light, its ionizing power is several thousand times that of an ordinary proton. Passage through the body of a single iron nucleus destroys an entire column of cells along its path. The total amount of energy which the particle dumps into the body is small, but it is highly concentrated. This radiation can not only increase the risks of cancer, it can provide pathways of damaged or dead cells along which the cancer can spread and grow.
The iron nuclei do even more. They destroy nerve cells in the brain and spinal column which cannot reproduce themselves. Once the cells are dead, they can never be replaced. Studies of Apollo astronauts indicate that on their two-week lunar voyages, they may have lost as much as one ten-thousandth of their nonreplaceable neurons. Under such conditions after several years in space, the loss could reach several percent."
What was craziest to me about the hearing was that the monitoring system actually WORKED. Their insane approach of not testing to destruction and relying on acoustic/strain monitors to tell when the structure was deforming gave them plenty of warning. The leadership just ignored it, because it probably would've meant that the company would fold.
Right? Craziest thing to me was it wasn’t “real time” tho. They had to analyze the data after the dive, which was wild to me. It was literally just to placate the passengers and investors. 😮
One of the ex Oceangate employees at the hearings said something along the lines of them counting the total number of ‘hits’ (ie fiber breakages) over a dive. But they didn’t keep track of the total over the lifetime of the vessel. He also said Rush insisted there was no audio alarm for a critical number if breakages (im not sure how they defined ‘critical’).
So I suspect the entire system was just part of the sales pitch and didn’t really serve a practical purpose.
If they would have tested to destruction, it would have been harder to ignore the signs. Regardless of whether the system provided the info they needed, a
They didn't recognize what it was telling them. If the failure had been on a test dive, it would have imploded unexpectedly, like it did. And then they would likely have gone over all the data and saw exactly what the early signs of failure looked like. Yes, the early signs of failure were visible, but it might well be missed if you have never seen it before. I suspect no one actually knew what early signs of failure looked like on the hull monitoring system until AFTER it happened. If you had looked at that data BEFORE the failure, you might strongly suspect something is wrong. You'd be right. A proper safety program would review the data every dive. But I suspect he would have just explained it away. "It'll be fine"
But even if they had seen the signs, there the question of how much degradation is acceptable. It comes down to something else he didn't know. How many dives is the vehicle good for. It's a finite number. Is it 1? 2? 100? The only way to know that is to implode at least one. Actually, you'd probably want to start with lab testing, then move to imploding small pressure vessels deep in the ocean then once you feel you understand how carbon fiber submersibles fail, dive a real one again and again until it fails. Then see if the hull monitoring sensors tell you what you thought they should. If not, figure out why not and repeat.
It worked but they weren't looking at the data in a way that would make the issues obvious. As far as the could tell everything was fine over repeated dives. IIRC the issue was they were plotting the data versus time, not depth. Doing the latter showed very clear and concerning anomalies. I believe Scott Manley discussed this in _OceanGate Wreck Shows Why Sub Wasn't Strong Enough To Survive - NTSB Shares Important Details._
If they had had 1000s of sensors and testing as per standard (which would not have taken that much extras) and a clean production and some materials experts ON the team etc. But none of that is what happened. And that goes for every single aspect of the organisation
>says aluminum AND maths
well, now you've made both sides of the pond mad
Well if you don't agree with the americans you can always call them a bunch of arsehole.
That was a Jimmy Carr joke.
transatlantic brilliance i reckon
People who are annoyed by using the "wrong" regional spelling or pronunciation deserve to be annoyed.
At the very least don't tiptoe around them.
We're used to that sort of thing in Canada.
Aww my jimmy carr joke was deleted. Internet's loss
I was dismissive of the real time monitoring system too but I saw the testimony that said there were abnormalities after one of the dives had an abnormally large sound when they were coming back up. A youtube vid I watched showed the graph of subsequent dives and how the hull was reacting differently. I believe the real time monitoring system even disproved Stockton's theory for the loud sound as he said it was just the metal structure moving slightly over the exterior of the pressure vessel when in reality, the RTM data showed an increase in hoop strain right when that loud bang was picked up by the piezo sensor.
It is absolutely nuts that they had all the data to verify the hull was compromised and they either never checked it or just sat on it. All they needed was the data from the dive after that loud sound to verify and yet, they took several more dives after that. There's not a doubt in my mind that Stockton at least suspected that the hull was compromised. The more I hear about it, the more it seems like they were about to go bankrupt so he was just ignoring all the problems cause he didn't have the resources to fix them.
Well, it wasn't really a _real time_ monitoring system, since it just spat out data that had to be imported into a spreadsheet. But yeah, if they'd actually fed the sensor data into a real time monitoring system, it could have picked out the sudden shift that accompanied the bang as well as discrepancies in how the hull responded to pressure afterwards. That would have been enough to flag the hull as unsafe for continued use without inspection.
Of course, that's just one data point. Destructive testing of more hulls is needed to determine if the system is actually useful, but one "success" is more promising than I expected.
@@SnakebitSTI There was nothing stopping them from having it be Real Time except Stockton himself.
They did some 5 dives after the hull was failing, they had plenty of data on hand.
I think he wanted to go out this way, he was ruined,...he said it himself when he said ‘i want to be remembered for...,’
Yes, and that's what makes the whole thing even worse for me. I learned so much over the last few weeks and that they actually should have seen it coming makes me even more sad.
@@vastaria5247 There certainly does seem to be a scenario for Rush to end it this way, as the vessel he was so proud of was clearly failing, proving all his theories and claims wrong. Add to that the fact that Oceangate did do well financially and that scenario only gets to be more likely. "Go out with a bang instead of a whimper" might have been on Rush's mind, but we'll never know for sure.
This is possibly the best title I've ever seen on yt
(Also, first one)
I pretty much started with the title and worked backwards from there.
the thumbnail is incredible too! and accurate @@Alexander-the-ok
@@OutbackCatgirl Ha I can’t describe how little effort I made on that thumbnail.
Very English innit
13:49 Scott Manley's recent Titan video discusses how the flat back to the window may have resulted in stress concentration. It also discusses how the monitoring system may have actually detected the onset of nonlinear stress-strain response of the hull during a previous dive, but this was not acted upon.
Huh so it does. Looks like I missed that video.
I listened to the hearing session with the NTSB guy who spoke about the viewport when I was out for a run so I might not have absorbed all the detail there either.
It was a cylinder made out of carbon fibre,that was the problem.
@@anrit5972
I would recommend rewatching this and Mr Manley’s videos if that is your takeaway.
@@anrit5972incorrect
@@anrit5972Rewatch this video if that's your takeaway. Carbon fiber is okay, when used right. Cylinder vessels are also fine, when used right. The problem of Ocean Gate is not knowing how to use these things right, yet pretending they did, and convinced the tourists that they did.
I was discussing Oceangate with my wife recently (many hours driving and I strive to entertain her) and opined that there were likely lots and lots of engineers all excited about the prospects of making a DSV out of carbon fiber BECAUSE of the way it failed. The early warning system worked like a charm, despite no one thinking there'd be any warning at all. DESPITE the amazingly shitty way they fabricated the cylinder, with all the dirt, dust, air pockets, poor section adhesion, absolutely laughable way they decided to glue the rings on, etc., etc., etc., that damn thing went down to the Titanic on multiple occasions. Imagine if you weren't a narcissistic know-it-all (clearly suicidal) billionaire and actually gave a damn about safety and did the fabrication under conditions that wouldn't wind up with all those defects, what could _that_ hull do? It may be a while before anyone will want to attempt to replicate with actual humans, but I imagine people are already fabricating such things as I type these words.
Your comment is super interesting but I got fully sidetracked by misreading one little phrase as "what that hull do" (she SUCC)
Yeah, as I said in a separate comment, there really is no problem with building subs (or anything else for that matter) in the name of innovation. Build them out of wood for all I care.
Just properly test the thing before. Have multiple engineers looking at it. Don't let profit guide the decision making that should be led by science.
@@gustavolopes5094 Or ego!
@@mitakeet yeah, which I think I agree was the main guide for Stockton's actions. I will add though that I see many people around the comments of videos like this diagnosing the guy as a narcissist but I really don't think people understand how easy it is for a human brain to delude itself into believing his own hype. From everything I've seen that seems to be the actual cause of Stockton's ultimate doom, but I may be wrong.
@@gustavolopes5094 Dude put in an early working system _that worked_, but ignored the information! While I doubt he was intentionally suicidal, there's no doubt in my mind there was only one way for this to end: He would've kept pushing and pushing until the inevitable.
You don't get off that easy! You better do a part 3 when we get the full NTSB report on the actual engineering failure of the contraption!
If I can add anything to the conversation at that point I will do. Maybe.
@@Alexander-the-ok10 second video. Yell at everyone to read the damn pdf
Hear, hear!
he should also do a part 4 on the conditions that led to Stockton Rush getting into the spot he has today
@@biomerl what if I'm far too lazy? lol
9:37 TLDR:
Super-Kamiokande, Japan's renowned neutrino detector, features a massive underground tank holding 50,000 tonnes of water and lined with 11,200 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). These PMTs, each over 50 cm in diameter, are designed to detect faint flashes of Cerenkov radiation emitted when neutrinos interact with electrons in water. During maintenance, while the tank was being refilled, one PMT likely imploded, sending a shockwave that shattered 7,000 nearby tubes in a cascading failure. The large size of these PMTs, which enhances their sensitivity, may have also made them more fragile. Repair costs are estimated between $10 million and $30 million, drawn from other research budgets.
I would hope that the replacement tubes are made a little tougher.
@@vylbird8014 it was in 2001... You can probably find out what they did to fix it. I do wonder if they needed to use the same fragile PMT's to match the remaining ones? 🤔
@@vylbird8014 They apparently used some sort of plastic cylinder around the sides of each tube to protect the sides from shockwaves. It seems to have worked.
Never thought I'd see a PMT cascade failure, let alone and read a YT comment about it
Hard to believe since PMT's usually have such thick glass envelopes.
Your thumbnail, showing the single point of failure, is a perfect summary of the entire situation. The number of things done incorrectly boggles my mind, and they were all done because of Stockton Rush.
Yes, he absolutely is the single point of failure.
Cuz stockton wanted 2 rush
A podcast about engineering disasters with slides, you say?
"Yes."
"It's not supposed to look like that."
Not a reference I expect but I don't know why not.
Well, he is the person who is talking right now...
Yay Liam
thanks Mr. the ok, i know we dont deserve this but treats are nice
No, you guys deserve better than this slideshow...
@@Alexander-the-okI need to know - do you feel that way because it's a slideshow, or is it simply a comment in re: the quality of *this* slideshow?
(Because, uh, the amount of Perun video watchtime I've accrued suggests that 'slideshow' is no hindrance to a good time in my book.)
@@Alexander-the-ok Perun puts out weekly slideshows about defense economics and they're great
Nah just because its a topic that is already heavily covered.
@@Alexander-the-ok
I’m looking forward to Alexander’s guest appearance on Well There’s Your Problem.
theres bound to be an oceangate episode at some point...
You read my mind! Can’t wait for that one
assuming his politics line up, it would be interesting to watch rocz and alex out-dry humour eachother
Alexander coming on to do Oceangate would be by far the funniest option just because of him never being able to escape talking about it
@@birkobird considering he referenced them, probably a safe bet he's a listener at least
The moment I heard it was a tourist sub, I knew there wouldn't be a rescue. I've read too many disaster stories with corner-cutting tourist vessels to have believed this was any way up to spec. And absolutely agreed on the ethics of climbing Everest, I'm from a very touristy city and know how a specific industry gets prioritized above residents who get priced out or have to work for the industry, serving rich visitors while never able to afford the same services themselves. For all the money poured into each ascent and hiring guides, imagine what could be done for the Sherpa population if that was invested instead into helping them.
With supplemental oxygen, it’s just high altitude walking.
@@seppo532that is an extreme overexaggeration.
@@seppo532is that why there's still tons of deaths each year?
didn't read lol
"The point of failure was Stockton Rush". What an excellent assessment! I just read a great book "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande. It's not just about medicine, it's about why we fail in situations of great complexity, and how to avoid that. In the section on building, he writes about the Master Builder of the Middle Ages, and why that model is non-viable now. That's how Rush operated. I also liked your ending observations about giving phony titles to what are only rich tourists. I also get incensed at the phony labeling; it cheapens the hard work and sacrifice of those who really do earn those professional titles. Everest mountain climber....right. In too many of those cases, they were actually just part of the stuff that the sherpas dragged up the mountain.
Great recommendation, thanks!
That model wasn't even very viable at the time. Plenty of cathedrals -or bits of them- fell down over the years.
@@alisonwilson9749 Master Builders built Notre Dame, St. Peter's Basilica, and the United States Capitol Building. All still standing, with their "bits" (despite a major fire in Notre Dame). You are missing the point: the complexities and advancements in all the aspects of building now mean it is impossible for any one person to master them, where even just over a century ago it was possible. Rush styled himself a "Master Builder" type, one who could oversee all aspects of the sub construction from architectural design to engineering specs to materials used, to actual construction,
I believe Rush cited that book extensively.
That first image of the Aluminaut has such a jaunty-looking face.
The Aluminaut is adorable and clearly a Very Good Boy (buoy?)
It looks like the Big Blue Bug in Rhode Island
I would say that, if anything, Oceangate's expeditions actually had negative scientific value since they were actively contributing to the degradation of all the environments they explored.
Yes, and not only because they failed. They dropped rusty weights all the time. I think the Titanic should at least be left behind as it is, if someone wants to visit it
@@copicgirl8057 That's actually something most submersibles that dive to Titanic do, there's a designated area/s away from the wreck your supposed to go to drop ballast.
Shoddy build, multiple dives, ignored the "sound monitoring" that clearly showed the fibers were failing, leave the craft in a parking lot in very cold temps, then tow it behind a ship in high swells so it gets some nice hard jolts, add to that they cheapened out on the titanium rings, making the lip too short, and you have pureed billionaires/millionaires.
To me this was a murder/suicide case. Rush had no option but chance it because his company, and his "legacy" were on the line.
I forgot about them leaving it in the parking lot! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when that was mentioned.
Also Oceangate was broke!! Stockton was in deep and yes i think he knew it would eventually fail and i dont think he cared. He was also very upset he couldn't be a pilot because of his vision. I think he had a death wish
@@Mr.Blonde92 agree completely.
I have worked and lived the “fake it ‘til you make it” ethos popular in Silicon Valley and tech in general. I have come across my fair share of Stockton Rushes with more money than sense.
Sure, in some cases it works, whether by luck, talent, or because the right people are onboard at the right time.
In most cases it doesn’t. What happens is that the product doesn’t sell, the company either vanishes or they sell their IP to a bigger, but equally deluded company, and the cycle goes on.
In Oceangate case, the results were more dramatic than most, but also Rush had the benefit of multiple experts telling him that his ideas were faulty, but he ignored them and even mocked them or sued them into oblivion.
In his case it was a “fake it ‘til you implode”.
I am convinced that way in the back of his mind he knew the outcome was more than possible, even inevitable, but decided to take the risk anyway.
And now he has killed another 4 people and traumatized countless others.
@@PamelaContiGlass he was storing the titan in a parking lot in the winter and it wasn't even covered, like wtf? Then the huge bang they heard on the titan while coming back to the surface on dive 80 i think it was, yea he knew it would fail eventually its just sad he took 4 other people with him including a kid
@@Mr.Blonde92 they only made 13 actual trips to Titanic. The 14th was one way
Oceangate was a ghoulish safari of a century old graveyard. Rush wasn't an explorer, he was an exploiter.
Given the victims of the Titanic were very far from ceremonially buried, it’s more of a mass tomb than a graveyard. To be ghoulishly pedantic.
@@designatedarkhorse Its all good, I do enjoy pedantry myself.
A mass grave is the usual archaeological term, they don't have the implications of careful, deliberate burial of the dead
@@golddragonette7795yup, mass graves almost always have massively fucked up reasonings behind their creation, usually always genocide, war crimes or some other human rights abuse
@@PlayingGilly next decade there would be a millionaire running a service to visit the wreckage of the Titan with an oil drum with plexiglass lid
Let's call it Tit
As a composite tech (Northrop Grumman Airbus A350 XWB -900 and -1000), I was taught The same. Composites are worse in compression, but normally, there are more ply's on the compression side to give some extra oomph and thickness. As for expiration, it's the resin that expires if it doesn't cure in 'X' amount of time. Wet winding doesn't really expire since the resin is mixed just before winding and fibers go into the wet resin bath just before being wound onto the tool(mold). So the expiration is how long the resin bath can be used before needing to mix a new batch. Only prepreg (Carbon fiber with resin already in the material) expires due to the resin. Prepreg needs to be in a freezer and is only good for about 1,000 hrs in 5 degrees f. once out of the freezer, it's about 150hrs. before the roll is bad.
Thanks for the explanation of resin expiry. For those who don't follow Oceangate closely, the first hull was wet wound, the second hull, the one that imploded, was all prepreg.
Wet epoxy has a use by date as well and just like prepreg its lifespan depends on how good storage conditions are. I have used and tested lots of out of date epoxy materials and they seem to be fine if carefully stored and not far out of date.Just like a pint of milk really,carefully examine it,smell it and don’t give it to elderly or vulnerable people.Life supporting critical structures are are not a suitable application.
How well does it handle 6 months of UV radiation and ~20 Celsius day-night temperature cycles in a Canadian parking lot?
@@Sableaglewell that’s the problem
In the conditions that you describe,it would be obviously fucked.That’s why it has a conservative safety margin built into the storage limits, and you must be aware that you are gambling a bit after that.
It’s quite complicated because you have to account for the time it’s not in the freezer,known as “outlife” things like very careful defrosting to avoid moisture.
@@SableagleI have to say that I don’t think out of date materials had very much to do with the failure. The finger is pointing squarely at processing and by extension testing whatever quality you have managed to achieve.
As someone who made it to your wall of shame in the beginning, thanks for the video. I feel vindicated that, by judging from listening to the hearings, the actual story was far more interesting then the simplistic one.
Yes, they didn't inspect the hull at all as it was 'complicated' to remove it from the sleeve, bizarrely not even after they had major acoustic event during one of the last dives. (there's some evidence based on their own acoustic monitoring data that this may have been a major delamination event. Both examining the hull and properly examining the data from AMS would likely reveal that the hull is done for)
Yes, you are correct, adding the flat surface to the window did make it weaker as it focused the pressure into the corners instead of spreading it out evenly. This flat surface was also a reason why the company that made it refused (quite correctly) to certify it to more then 1300m without appropriate testing.
Some other interesting points that came out during the hearing. Based on the presented requirements, it was practically impossible to class / certify the sub without astronomical costs. I think one of the requirements was to test 3 full hulls to depth of 24000m without failure, for example.
Also, the USCG regulation only allowed to operate submersibles for passengers up to 150ft depth so the 'mission specialist' I suspect was both about experience and actually skirting regulations.
Regarding the implementation of their safety management system, I think at some point this will be a perfect case study of how 'safety theater' looks like compared to actual safety management. I hope this will be a learning point because tons of operators of various kinds habitually engage in same fallacies as Rush did. I cringed when they described how sure, they had checklists, but if something on the checklist didn't work, Rush would make a call if they should go ahead or not... Come on. It seems to me that they simply didn't understand why certain things are done to ensure safety. And I think, currently, this is true for most of operators. People lack understanding of how and why safety management works and that imho leads to widespread noncompliance or just mechanically going through the motions without actually understanding why.
Ha good to see you back!
‘Safety theatre’ is a brilliant phrase. That’s exactly the term I was looking for but couldn’t quite find when writing the script.
@@Alexander-the-ok It was used by one of the witnesses to describe what was going on, I agree, it's perfect phrase.
@@misarthim6538The first time I heard it was in reference to the airport security measures that developed post 9/11.
Hello fellow commenter! Do you have any interesting resources for those who, like me, find the more complex story very interesting but have no time/will to delve into long hearings?
For those more interested in the Coast Guard hearings, Scott Manley has a great breakdown. An interesting point is that the flat inner surface of the window actually makes it WEAKER due to it concentrating stress at the inner edge.
Can't believe I not only missed Scott Manley's video before I made this, but also I listened to the NTSB engineer session while I was out for a run so clearly didn't take it in properly!
Yep, I saw that one too. And actually, nobody mentioned it anywhere, but on some of the videos recovering the remains of the titan, there is one scene, where they try to grab the rope to lift the front sphere, where the window was placed in. In the inside of the bow sphere you can see two very deep scratches in the titanium and the scratch marks definitely look like, the direction of force was from front to aft. And to scratch titanium like this, you need a tremendous force. Were shattered parts of the window driven into the metal, when it disintegrated with high speed?
howdy
Alright. Fancy seeing you here.
Omg crossover pls
My god the crossover of my engineering dreams
What is this, a crossover episode?! 🐶
crossover when?
14:38 for those that are curious, in the USCG hearing one engineer who was in correspondence with Rush did extensive modelling of this acrylic window shape. And in concave shapes, the stress is distributed equally along the inner surface, while this added material actually pushes the stress out and is concentrated on the edge where the acrylic window and the titanium dome are connected.
I was thinking that during that section. In engineering school they go over stress concentration due to profile changes a LOT.
Oh, exactly, I knew I saw it somewhere but didn't remembered where, thanks
thunderf00t did a video on it 😂🎉
Thank you, my thoughts were on the same lines. A thickness that's uniform can be stronger than a greater but uneven thickness purely because uniformity means the stress is evenly distributed.
0:21 I feel so heard rn. I thought I was the only one on earth who saw this look-alike.
bobbybroccoli and alexander the ok releasing videos in the span of 3 days we're so back
That tourist "astronaut" license is like the "Jay-Jay the Jet Plane" pilot license I had when I was 4 years old, but much more lame since it's for an adult.
That spaghetti example has thrown me for a loop.
Simple physics I've never learned, which I'm finding quite weird!
I think the whole point of calling the passengers mission specialists is to avoid having to classify the sub, which AFAIK is legally required for carrying paying passengers.
I don't think - based on the hearings - classing the sub is legally required. However, if I understand it correctly, it's legally impossible to dive below 150ft in US territorial waters with paying passengers regardless.
Snarky comment about 10:50 : On the other side of the pond, we don’t need acoustic or strain sensors on our bridges-we have the memory of _Galloping Gertie_ to warn us to make more complete calculations. 😮
Looks at her feet embarrassed and mumbles in Italian something about most of our bridges are still up. We only lost one major one.
@@annafdd Oh boy does this bring back unpleasant memories. I was not aware of this bridge or its collapse, but the Oakland Bay Bridge very near me (connects Oakland to San Francisco) is a self-supported cable stayed bridge that had serious allegations against it during design and construction. The loudest critic was a talk radio host (and a good friend, who happened to have three graduate degrees in physics and EE from UC Berkley) who regularly put a Berkley structural engineer on the air complaining about how idiotic the design was.
I think I’ve traveled over it three times and that’s probably twice too many.
Sub Brief did a pretty good commentary on the initial testimony and video out of the recent public inquiry, and he made sure to emphasize that whereas the front window of Titan fell off, that is far from typical; most submersibles are designed so that the front window doesn’t fall off at all!
Agh I forgot to mention his video.
But wasnt this one designed so that the front window wouldn't fall off?
The Aluminaut looks like a character from a water based Thomas the Tank Engine spin-off.
I’m glad that someone finally addressed the “carbon fiber in compression” stuff. Yes, it’s often weaker in compression than tension, usually anywhere from 5-50%, depending on the exact material constituents, interphases, geometries, and stacking sequences. I find it kind of ridiculous that something I learned in an intro to materials class (fibers take majority of the load, in compression or tension), in my first year at college.
But, I’m also biased, because I’ve built a student career in composites, hopefully soon to be a professional one, haha. Good video, glad you made it, but I will also be glad to never talk about Titan again.
Just a quick note about expired carbon, aircraft manufacturers are held to incredibly tight specifications/regulation when using composite materials. Often prepreg, they have a certain shelf life at refrigeration temp, and and certain outlife when then need to, say, pull out a roll, and cut some plies from it. A lot of FSAE, and college teams get the “expired” stuff that will cure fine, perform fine in most cases, but not something I’d want to use for human rated hardware like this at all.
Your drawn explanations are such a nice thing!
The spaghetti one lmao
Well there's Your Problem mentioned lfg
The most based reference an engineering video can have
I have become fascinated with this subject. I can honestly say, I haven’t seen a fairer summation of this incident. I also can’t help feeling that Rush was an example of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome at work. Pity so many “mission specialists” were sucked in by him
19:45 I disagree. Titan's high profile failure has had a lot of scientific value, if only because it generated a lot of interest in why it was such a horrible thing to do.
As one whose job and field of interest is airline aviation, the bit that really got my attention was during the 11th minute when it was mentioned that Rush was “a single point of failure” for the Titan and OceanGate.
Do you know why every airline flight has at least two pilots on board and in control of the aircraft at all times? (Lavatory breaks excluded of course.) So that there isn’t a single point of failure. If one pilot becomes incapacitated the other can still fly and land safely. It’s not as if the remaining pilot can just fly on to the intended destination, s/he has to declare an emergency and land immediately at the nearest airport.
And this is after all the other precautions the aviation industry has taken. Airline pilots have to be within a certain age range with darned near perfect health. No major medical conditions such as diabetes are permitted and almost no medications are allowed.
Harsh, but with the notable exception of modern Boeing, the aviation industry likes to eliminate as many sources of safety risks as possible so they try to reduce the risk of a pilot becoming too ill to fly as much as possible.
The more I hear about Rush and OceanGate, the more surprised and disgusted I become.
I couldn’t agree more about this Boeing is a notable example of an aviation organisation that seems to prefer reducing safety to single points.
My father is a GA pilot and I have many conversations with him about a lot of aviation topics and this is something that comes up constantly. We find a situation that has gotten to a single failure point and we point out all of the systems, policies, procedures and laws that already in place to ensure safety being ignored in so many incidents.
He recently told me of the somebody’s or companies brilliant idea of reducing the number of pilots to one and relying on an ai copilot. And getting rid of the superfluous extra pilot.
This made me so angry I couldn’t even answer with all the things that makes this a stupid and very dangerous idea.
And I’m not against Ai in general. It’s the money cutting culture of removing all the barriers and protections that have been put in place so we don’t get to single point failures allowing history to repeat again and again.
These things were written in human blood and is why aviation Is much safer than alot of other things. And I am a nervous flyer, so understanding this means I am ok flying because I know all the safety behind it.
Edit: I am also baffled and disgusted by this ocean gate stuff because of it. As a lot of the things in aviation safety can inform underwater safety. But Rush and his hubris/arrogance just threw safety out the window.
@@jasminestanbury9693 Heh, funnily enough my long term BF is an airline pilot, a decent number of my friends are and I’m a ramper/aircraft cleaner. Their response (probably to the same article(s) you read) was unanimous and uncompromising. Bad idea that probably won’t be actually implemented in our lifetimes.
The human factor can’t be removed entirely. Despite best efforts pilot incapacitation still happens occasionally. A Google search would probably show that it’s happened at least once or twice within the last few years. Until it can be proven beyond doubt that the “AI pilot” can think outside the box and show that it can be as adaptive to changing circumstances and be able to put different sources of information together into a coherent and workable plan as a human pilot, it won’t even be considered.
In short, it would have to be as capable as a human pilot in first being able to identify and understand that the human pilot is incapacitated, call the cabin crew in to administer first aid, contacting and informing ATC and actually being able to plot the course and land the aircraft all on its own with no human intervention. As far as I know, Airbus has developed an experimental aircraft that can take information straight from the various sensors and take off, fly and land on its own but it’s just experimental and decades away from being implemented on any airliners.
Bear in mind that I’m not a pilot myself so take anything I say with a grain of salt but from what I understand the autopilot in use today is actually rather stupid. It can’t keep up with rapidly shifting winds and can’t configure the flaps, lower the landing gear or control the rudder directly. Evidently it’s more akin to cruise control than something like a driverless car. While I don’t really have a problem with AI in general I’d never trust my life to one. I’d rather walk than get into a driverless car that I couldn’t override at will to drive myself, so I’d have to be at the wheel and monitoring the traffic anyway which defeats the point of having a driverless car. I’m not getting into a single pilot or pilotless airliner ever even if it becomes available during my lifetime.
I didn’t bring it up in my last comment to keep it from being too long, but the other reason there’s at least two with a very shallow power dynamic is also so if one starts making mistakes or exercising poor judgment that could make the flight unsafe, the other is trained to call them out on it.
Which actually also applies to Stockton Rush. Maybe if he had the equivalent of a first officer calling him out on his poor decisions and he actually listened, he would be alive today. The history of submersibles and submarines is as bloodstained as aviation. As my trainer put it… “The safety rules are written in blood. Be careful when thinking about cutting corners or bending the rules because it might just be that the next safety rule will be written with your blood.” Fair enough. I have no desire to be knocked onto backside due to jetblast or eaten by a jet engine. Safety rules are good.
Scott Manley made a really good video about newer data that came out about it, including showing exactly how the window was weakened, and how the acoustic monitoring system warned them 3 dives before the ultimate failure - but no one noticed, or they ignored it.
When I saw pictures of the carbon fiber cylinder, I thought it was a flywheel. I made the exact same size and shape using the same wet bath winding. The flywheels were sent to BP to get installed in vacuum chambers and spin up to 35,000rpm so when the powerplant gets heavy usage, the can use these flywheels to generate extra power during peak power usage to help with the load. These flywheels looked just like the one on Oceangate.
Tesla also wound carbon-fibre around its rotor because the force on the magnet can blow it apart. The point is; a flywheel are wound with carbon-fibre to ensure it doesn't blow apart due to centrifugal force at 35k RPM.
0:20 "Oh God, Ted, there's a dent in the submarine!"
Oh shit a podcast about engineering disasters - with slides - AND an oceangate treat? As they say on Twitch, poggers
First we have to ask: What is "slides"?
I watched your first Ocean Gate vid then lost track of this channel. Got recommended this one, glad to see your channel is still doing well. You came, you answered questions people had, and you carved out a little niche. Proud of you.
A Podcast? With slides? About engineering disasters? That will never take off.
Next off, you're going to tell me that people will listen to a weekly powerpoint about military stuff and Emutopia vs. Kiwiland.
@@superbaardman2141 I feel seen
One point with the whole carbon fibre in comprehension thing is from my personal experience. Formula 1. The entire structure of those cars are made of the stuff including most importantly the rear wing which has pressures of (roughly) 2000N crushing it and the carbon that supports it all is only a couple millimetres thick also it undergoes massive changes in pressure as the car speeds up and slows down. Carbon fibre is awesome and like every material it all comes down to how you use it
Exactly. In F1 if the cars look at each other wrong, you see carbon fiber confetti shatter all over the place.
I'll repeat what I said in the last video about this:
I don't think Stockton "Captain Crunch" Rush hired young, unexperienced engineers as a costsaving measure. I think he did so because the guy was such a narcissist that he couldn't bear the thought of anyone talking back to him. As you said, older engineers are very blunt about their opinion, and are not afraid to say it or even whistleblow.
My favourite analogy about the entire carbon hull thing: Pressurizing carbon fibre like this is like trying to play billiards with a rope instead of a cue.
Edit: If you ever need someone to ask about chemistry for anything in your videos, you can ask me.
Edit2: I'd like to add another example to the list of desasters caused by procedural fuckups. Oppau explosion, 1921:
"Let's just shake loose these ammonium nitrate crystals from the piping using dynamite."
"Like trying to play billiards with a rope" like a rope cast in epoxy more like. You know you can actually buy carbon fiber pool cues? Anyway, as the video explains in the section titled 'Carbon fiber can't be used in compression' starting around 2:50, carbon fiber can be used in compression. If it couldn't, Titan would have survived zero dives.
It's a clever little analogy which utterly fails to address the problems with Titan.
I think it was cost saving and narcissism. I worked, as a contractor, with a dozen venture capital funded start-ups in alternative fuels. I saw both behaviors many times. In some cases the companies were a mostly scams to milk investors, but Rush appears to have believed his own BS. 10 years later, none of these companies survive, but at least none of them killed their CEO or investors. Mother nature is b....
_Oppau_
Please send that to WTYP!
Guess what? those “young unexperienced” engineers are now the world’s most experienced engineers in building submersibles using carbon fibre…
Stockton Rush would’ve been the most experienced (and was) but since he died in the accident, so now those that worked with him are now the most experienced…
Note, this is not an opinion.
Yeah exactly. Every so often you'll see some internet comment hero claiming Rush was "woke" because he once spoke of not hiring "old white guys" to look good on 2010's era news. He just didn't wanna hire people who had the industry tenure and savings to call his bluff and walk if he threatened their jobs.
That Father Ted transition is a work of art.
Respect.
🤣🤣🤣
I like that you counteract "halo effect" bias with this video. Some people are very susceptible to it. Once one piece of information is bad, they paint everything bad. Suddenly all the materials are bad, and shape is bad, and people involved suddenly have ugly faces, and their IQ is zero, and somehow even their dog is also a murderhobo.
3:51 According to testimonies, there were deficiencies in the carbon fiber hull that dated back to the manufacturing process, though I'm not sure how significant of a factor it was when the sub imploded.
4:56 specifically during the wrapping of the carbon fiber as shown in this clip, they would shave off any wrinkles that formed during the wrapping of the hull. The carbon hull was made wth five(?) separate sessions of wrappinf and shaving. Scott Manley mentioned it in his video, I think.
Your channel is probably the biggest surprise expressed by value divided by expectations at first glance. And just keeps on giving with every video😁
Agree with your assessment
The lack of philly accents and actionable threats in this podcast about engineering disasters... with slides; is concerning.
"Yeah, we'll get to that."
First, we have to ask: What is "submarine"?
the WTYP reference 👌
First we have to ask: what is "WTYP"?
1:00 They would totally have you on as a guest.
Seriously email them, 100% they will say yes.
Like if you tried to get the hair off of the screen at 7:40
Modeling of the flat-interior window has so far found that stress concentrates at the inner edge where it met the frame (whereas with the curved window the circumferential face sat flush). Cracks could form and propagate from there.
Every one of your videos is more than a treat.
Love the shout out to “Well There’s Your Problem.”
I haven't watched any of the previous oceangte videos but I clicked on this purely because I knew it'll be a long rant by a very passionate person based on the title alone
➕➕➕
Something that continues to bug me is that this completely foreseeable, avoidable, narcissism-fueled negligent homicide is that it's only added to the weird, morbid fascination meets teenage fan club fog of myth about the ship. The site is a mass grave for innocent people who died in a horrific and painful manner, and there are thousands of such sites at the bottom of the world's oceans. If you're not going down there to acquire cutting-edge data, then you're going to gawk at death. If that's your thing, why not Wilhelm Gustloff, or the naval carnage at the bottom of Leyte Gulf? While none of these are supposed to be picnic spots, I can't understand why people have chosen this one ship as their shrine to tragic death in the grip of the indifferent waves. Plenty of other ships sank on their maiden voyage. Plenty of others have poignant survivor anecdotes and heartbreaking death tolls. Why does Titanic inspire such empathy and reverence (and desire to look upon the remains) instead of, say, the Dona Paz, or even more recently, MV Sewol? And what's with the romantic woo about Titanic that was around even before the most recent movie? There are countless stories of heroism and depravity, astonishing luck both good and bad, frozen children, honeymooning couples ripped apart, and every flavor of traumatic doom imaginable documented with other disasters. Titanic's story is awful and senseless, but it's not unique. Now that Titan has joined the story, there's even more 'unlucky stars' bs cooking up and people relishing the notion of a supernatural curse. Design problems and carelessness (with some help from a mountain of ice) sank the Titanic. Design problems and carelessness and inconceivable tons of water destroyed Titan. If there's a curse at all, it's feckless people in a big hurry to make money and get famous who don't think it's important to make sure the maths are right.
I guess the time period is the thing? The titanic sank near the beginning of the century, and that makes it somehow nostalgic in a way? Like how ppl feel about James Dean's death in present times, like a long lost thing
I assume it's Because the British are insanely narcissistic and it was a British naval disaster.
To be fair, America made the 1990 film. The three films we made about, all three were in black-and-white, one of them was the account of someone who was on the titanic, another was more of a "this is how it happened" film more than anything. Also, this is just my experience as a brit, but no one is obsessed with it. Maybe it's because of the turn of the century, but apart from learning about it in school [and hearing about the 1990 film], it's not a big thing. In america, though, it's different. I wouldn't know on that side, though
Got it, I’ll go pay to visit the Edmund Fitzgerald instead
I suspect part of the romanticizing of the Titanic is because here in the States we have a very weird parasocial relationship with High Society (queue the old quote about the propensity of Americans to behave like we're all temporarily inconvenienced millionaires, just waiting for our ship to come in) and this was a catastrophe that happened to involve many of the wealthiest families of the time. As has been observed many times over the years, a lot of people who are fascinated with the Titanic have a lot in common with a sizeable minority of the Renaissance Faire, Steampunk, Neo-Victorian, and Neo-Confederate Civil War reenactor communities - there's a hell of a lot of middle-class folks here in the States willing to spend a lot of money because they're in love with imagining themselves as members of the social elite of their time of choice.
7:50 who else was trying to wipe away the hair from their monitor?
I think Kym Catterson is right when he said the carbon fiber hull came off the front titanium ring it was attached to. It would have been a bit like stepping on a Pringles can and the lid popping off. The front fell off, basically. This was due to the two materials behaving very differently when submitted to what the Titan was submitted to (that's a long list). The glue joint eventually gave way.
You can tell that's what happened by the buckled hull in the video. Even before they released the footage, I have seen simulation of that from various people.
It makes me wonder if adding another titanium ring in the middle of the hull would have, at least, prolonged the life of the hull.
To be sure, it was delaminating (that's what the "acoustic events" were)' but 2 shorter hulls could have been less likely to fail under stress.
Then there is the idiotic idea of routing the edges of the hull to make it fit the rings. How do you make a brittle carbon fiber hull even more likely to fail? Shave a few mm from the edges.
It was just shoddy workmanship.
Even their 1/3 scale testing was all wrong. They tested to destruction and called it a day when it failed at depths slightly higher than titanic was. Instead of cycling the testing to simulate multiple dives and then test it to failure.
This was hubris, bad engineering and desperation. R..ush knew that his craft was doomed, but didn't care, which is why he piloted it. I think he figured better turn into fish food than getting sued for everything he got.
In that case the crushing of the pringle can would have been the failure mode and the lids popping off would just be a consequence of it.
"There's no single body to blame"
Oh there's no body alright...
They found a piece of a body in the wreckage. They can blame that.
Honestly thank you for making another video here. I know it's something you never intended to do, but you bring a care and understanding to things that's often missed elsewhere.
Carbon fiber bicycle existed for a long time and is mostly on compressive load, they're so strong, especially its forks, it's very thin but could carry so much more load than aluminium.
I loved your videos about Oceangate last year, so happy to see more! Thank you.
17:54 Cash ballast
Titan was literally uncertifiable, for a purely technical reason. All the titanium spheres? They're built to fit inside the only tank in the world that can pressure test them to depth. You literally can't make them bigger, because otherwise they wouldn't fit and you'd need to design a new bigger pressure testing tank, a more expensive an exercise than creating any submarine. So Rush's sub can't be certified by anyone, literally because the facilities to experimentally certify the hull pressure don't exist for such a size of pressure vessel.
I've heard very few if any UA-camrs ever explain this, only whine why he never got it certified. The excuse of "well nowhere exists to test it" doesn't sound good to the press either; but I'd argue it's marginally more acceptable than "I dun wanna"
> 'Don't try and divine my politics'
> WTYP reference
Surely, that only narrows out the culture war-flavoured options, no?
Unbelievably great content. An in depth look at single points of failure, broken down to help better understanding of the complex formulas and methods used in solving very complex problems. Great vid.
Another contributing factor was the the dives were made, as far as I know, in an administrative void- there is no entity legally bound to certify commercial submersibles used on the high seas, and none with the power to enforce regulations there. I wonder if that will change by international treaty or something.
Brilliant again Alex! You give a master class on how to impartially analyse these kind of events with OG as the example. Thanks for making this and your other videos.
The day just got better.
The monitoring system was useless. It would warn you of a failure before the implosion. Thats like trying to dodge a bullet by relying on the sound of the bang.
Well done. I mean, really well done! In this video you were fair, well balanced but you concluded with a devastating summation of Money Tourism - those who encourage it for their own purposes and all it stands for.
Very impressive.
Yeah, you raise some _really_ good points. People want to pay for the prestige of the person who climbs Everest wanting the climb, but they neglect the fact that to truly want the climb means that there is no confirmed promise of prestige.
For the present time I think the safest & most economical method of exploring the ocean depths is with robotic deep sea vessels. I feel the same way about space exploration.
For deep sea exploration and research, (certified) crewed vessels are much much more valuable than robotic ones. And they are incredibly safe.
Space exploration is an entirely different story. I’ll talk more about that in the future.
These OceanGate videos are like a cheat code on YT. I've yet to see one with less than tens of thousands of views.
(I'm not complaining, this is a fascinating topic)
WTYP podcast mentioned. Yay Alexander!
I am so happy I found your video today because I found you! Love your content thus, I can tell I won’t be disappointed🤷🏻♀️😁 this is just my type of channel, with a great host that challenges my brain/thoughts… I believe every day you should gain just a little bit more knowledge than the day before…So I wanted to thank you for sharing, your knowledge💜 Thanks again
One last thought I used to sell that one bike in the early 90s and by the mid 90s carbon fiber was becoming a thing with bike frames so I’ve been around carbon fiber. I have a very visual mind and I could see carbon fiber with pressure against it and friction and so on and so forth I just don’t see why, why, why… or do I already know the answer to that and I shall not say that🤔
The thumbnail is lovely. Good job.
Thanks. I’ll be honest, I put basically zero effort into it.
Until this video I hadn’t noticed but yeah, the Oceangate guy does look weirdly like Father Ted
“I hear you’re a Titanic victim now, Father!”
I have personally worked at the Hyatt Regency (Now called The Sheraton, and owned by Marriott) and you would be surprised at how many pilots come in to snap pictures in the lobby of "The Worlds Deadliest Hotel", i got constant questions from pilots when i worked there about the incident and it is genuinely creepy to wander around that building late at night, old creaky elevators, drafty high-rise windows, things that make people legitimately consider that it could be haunted (if you believe in that sort of thing).
Of course, the staff decline to admit that its the same hotel, and even speaking about it is not encouraged, but i wouldn't be surprised if it became another one of these tourist destinations soon.
14:20 the scott manly video i watched on the failure showed some modeling that suggests the extra material makes the window a lot weaker since all the force gets focused on a single point instead of getting spread out
The algorithm gods demand the oceangate saga continues! 😂😂😂
Bro you're channel is awesome, the virgin galactic space video alone is incredible
Stockton Rush or as I refer to him Dick Crush, was a narcissist. I'm sure the term Mission Specialist was to scape goat law's pertaining to sub diving rules. I agree with Carl Stanley's
assessment of Dick Crushes state of mind.
Frankly deep sea research and diving to the Titanic are two different functions altogether.
14:30 is a very unintuitive but very good point. Sometimes more material is not as strong because it can introduce stress accumulation points that aren't present with less material.
Being a proper American, the place where I've heard of this is in firearms. In the 80s, Colt started trying to re-chamber their 1911 model pistol from .45 Auto to 10mm Auto. 10mm Auto is an extremely powerful cartridge compared to .45; it carries more energy hundreds of meters downrange than .45 has at the muzzle. That being the case, 10mm Auto started cracking the steel frames of the pistols after a much shorter lifetime than normal. What Colt figured out is that the frames tended to crack in one stress accumulation point. What they also figured out was that if you simply delete the material around that point by cutting a notch in the frame, the problem goes away and the lifespan of the pistol increases. If the material's not there, it can't fail. It sounds like some stupid logic, but it worked. They extended that modification to their normal models to the same effect.
Was just watching a Short of yours and saw you uploaded lol
thank you for the well theres your problem reference - really threw me hahah
That thunbnail may genuinely be the best one I have ever seen on this platform
Hahahaha Father Ted! I knew that Rush idiot looked familiar.
I found this channel from the original Oceangate video, and watched nearly everything since!
Wahey bonus video
I understand you were reluctant to make this video, and I wasn’t sure I needed another one on the topic when hitting “play”. It’s great, though, and I’m grateful for it and the thoughtful ending.
Turns out the acoustic listening system could actually be a decent safety system, if only as a warning system for material degradation. You just need to, like, actually check the data and take action based on it.
The interface between the flanges and carbon fibre looked like the weak link to me when I watched the construction video. Relying on an adhesive jointing compound to be the sole means of binding two different material types together rang alarm bells with me. The application of the glue using a roller ensured that a random thickness of the adhesive would be applied. Holidays, highs and lows as well as any airborne contaminants would all been present in and on both sealing faces. If a single drop of water happened to find its way through this joint a catastrophic failure would have soon followed. The initial drip of water may not of even needed to travel from the wet side to dry side, a void in the carbon fibre may have been enough. Personally I wouldn’t have risked standing under those end domes if they were glued onto a structure above me even though I know that buses are held together with similar products.
5:58 I really like your accent: ...an whoile we are ae ih...
And of course I really do like your good and understandable explanations. Well done, Sir and thank you 🙏
For an "If I have too..." video, this was really awesome.
I share your contempt for calling space passengers astronauts. I'm a highly qualified technician with no degree, so I'm not an engineer. While I worked for a certain oil company you would all know, they changed my job title to engineer. I refused to sign that HR form. I refused to sign any single thing no matter how small while they had that title against my role. I was an area authority in their permit to work system so this caused significant disruption. They applied pressure and I resisted, I offered to take the title but only after I had completed the qualification and they paid for it all. Unsurprisingly they declined my offer. Lives depend on my work and the title of Engineer means something. It took nearly two weeks and they backed down. A year later I got a redundancy so they could slot in the pushover Engineer I disproved several times. I don't mind, If someone dies on that site it's not my fault.
That is a major issue with the UK oil and gas industry. Honestly it’s an issue with engineering in the uk as a whole (the title isnt protected like it is in other countries).
I respect your integrity for holding your ground, I don’t think most would have done that.
That is a major issue with the UK oil and gas industry. Honestly it’s an issue with engineering in the uk as a whole (the title isnt protected like it is in other countries).
I respect your integrity for holding your ground, I don’t think most would have done that.
YESSSSSS Thank you for another video on this! This story is just so fascinating and I love your insights on this!