The Titan was touted for a design that included a carbon fiber hull and an elongated cabin for crew and passengers. But outside experts say the design and construction of the submersible put greater stress on its structure.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.A boat with the OceanGate logo is parked on a lot near the OceanGate offices Thursday, June 22, 2023, in Everett, Wash. The U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday that the missing submersible Titan imploded near the Titanic shipwreck site, killing everyone on board.
The sphere is “the perfect shape,” because water pressure is exerted equally on all areas, said Chris Roman, a professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Roman had not been on the Titan but has made several deep dives in Alvin, a submersible operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.
Furthermore, the Titan’s 5-inch thick hull had been subjected to repeated stress over the course of about two dozen previous dives, Graham-Jones said. But carbon composites have limited life when subject to excessive loads or poor design which leads to stress concentrations, Graham-Jones said. “Once this thing is going down and going under stress, it’ll affect those materials, it’ll affect those composites,” Couture said Friday. “Nondestructive testing is how you would then assess those structures and say, ‘OK, they’re still viable,’ or, ‘they’re still susceptible.’”
In a 2019 company blog post, OceanGate criticized the third-party certification process as one that is time-consuming and stifles innovation.
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