A new exhibit joins the Titanic

I too think that an implosion is the most likely scenario. I hope that's what happened. Certainly it would be my choice if I were on that thing.

The drawn out version would be horrible to endure.

 

Imagine being one of the people who went down on the previous dives, knowing that you had already used a lifetime supply of good luck.

I'd never so much as jaywalk for the rest of my life.

 

I just mean - imagine you're the "captain" - "uh folks, just a slight problem with our comm link-nothing to worry about - we get these all the time and it's some current displacement. Uh folks, nothing to worry about, just a minor glitch with the battery. We let it cool down and we'll be good as gold. Uh folks, no worries - just condensation, this sub is perfectly sec......"

 

Well, the thread title proved to be prophetic.

 

Expert on underwater engineering and friend of the household here.

 

Asking navy.sj.com:

Any reason why the sub could handle the pressures on earlier missions and not now?

Does pressure remain constant that far from the surface?

Could high pressure previously have damaged the sub to an extent that it was just a matter of time before this result?

 

I'm not an expert, but I've watched The Abyss, Hunt for Red October and On The Beach.

My semi wild ass guess is that microscopic cracks could develop over time, get worse on successive trips, until ... poof.

I'd guess this is why legitimate naval and research craft undergo constant checks.

 

It makes sense. Assuming whoever built this didn’t account properly for repeated stress, it was a matter of time. The first time something is exposed to stress, the areas of highest stress are weakened unless you can spread out the pressure over maximum area. As you expose it to more stress, the weaker the material becomes until it fails spectacularly.

I assume Navy subs have the same concern but I’m not sure how they fight it, but if you ever had anything that seemed fine until it wasn’t had the same principle.

 

Also made of carbon fiber, was it not?

Which is well known, even among casual bicyclists for example, to fail catastrophically without warning.

 

The big thing with the carbon fiber is nobody knows for sure how it will respond to repeated trips to that depth. Sure, it should be fine the first time, but the jury is still out on the 21st time. Josh Gates described it like this: it's not like you are a passenger on a new aircraft that has hundreds of take off and landings; every time this thing went down, it was a brand new test flight.
I guess now they know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

As for Navy subs, I was told (never verified) that when new subs go out for the first time, they take the people who welded the thing together on the trip. Basically, if you did a crappy job, your tail is on the line, too.

 

Water pressure at that depth is about 400 atmospheres. 6000 psi.

 

Yep. You'd probably hear a crackle, and poof.