The discovery of a new set of parts from the doomed Titan submarine appears to shed some light on the cause of the disaster that killed five people in June 2023.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, investigators recovered various parts of the vessel last week, including an intact titanium aft end cap that was covered by a stern cone of the submersible.
Analyst Michael Chillit, who has studied the disaster himself, wrote in a Post on X that the emergence of the end cap photo suggests that investigators may now be able to solve the mystery.
“There has been a lot of speculation that it was the observation window that failed, but a damaged landing frame and a fully intact rear hemisphere suggests to me that there is one in the composite near the junction with the frame and rear hemisphere “Failure has come.” “said Chillit.
He also wondered if officials had recovered any parts of the ship’s observation port. The Coast Guard did not disclose in detail which new parts of the submersible were recovered.
Investigators recovered various parts of the boat, including the aft end cap that connected the hull to the stern of the vessel
Shahzada Dawood, 48, one of Pakistan’s richest men, who died on the Titan along with his teenage son Suleman Dawood, 19, (left) along with British explorer Hamish Harding (right).
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the carrier of the Titan, died aboard the submersible last Sunday along with his four passengers, including PH Nargeolet (right).
Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French naval pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush all died aboard the submersible.
The observation hatch and end cap were bonded to the fuselage with titanium. The ship’s hull was made of carbon fiber, a cheaper alternative more commonly used in aerospace.
Carbon fiber is believed to be as strong as titanium against pulling forces, but not against pushing forces such as the extreme pressure created by the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
If it fails, it shatters without warning, unlike titanium which would bend.
A July 2023 New York Times article also noted how difficult it can be to bond the joints of different materials, such as titanium and carbon fiber. The fuselage was glued to the titanium rings at both ends and the end caps were attached.
Forensic metallurgist Tim Foecke told the Times at the time that the size of the hull geometry had changed
Another theory put forward in the Times article is that the titanium glue may have been broken down by salt water.
Additional suspected human remains were carefully recovered from the Titan’s wreckage and transported for analysis by U.S. medical professionals, the Coast Guard said.
The US Coast Guard said it had recovered what were believed to be human remains along with parts of the Titan after locating the debris field at a depth of 12,500 feet
His vehicle Odysseus 6K reached the seabed after days of searching and found debris from the submarine about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow
The latest recovery mission, conducted under an agreement with the U.S. Navy, was a follow-up to initial recovery efforts on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the Titanic, the Coast Guard said.
The new materials were dumped at an unnamed port.
Chillit later stated that he believed the implosion occurred “in the area where the landing frame, fuselage and titanium end cap were connected.”
The Coast Guard had previously said it had recovered what were believed to be human remains along with parts of the Titan after locating the debris field at a depth of 12,500 feet.
Investigators believe the Titan imploded as it sank in the deep waters of the North Atlantic on June 18.
The multi-day search for the Silence of Titan attracted worldwide attention. The submersible attempted to visit the British passenger ship that sank in 1912.
The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation said investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada took part in the recovery expedition and the Coast Guard is coordinating with international investigative agencies to plan a joint review of evidence to investigate Next step to identify steps for forensic testing.
The Marine Board of Investigation, meanwhile, will continue its analysis and witness interviews ahead of a public hearing on the tragedy, officials said Tuesday.
OceanGate, the ship’s operator, has since gone out of business. Among those killed in the implosion was Stockton Rush, the submersible’s pilot and the company’s CEO.
Previous theories about what happened to the Titan submarine resulted in it breaking up as it approached the Titanic, killing all five on board
The theory drawn, not held securely
The Alvin research submarine is transported to diving sites on the deck of a special mothership equipped with custom-made winches and a large crane that lowers it into the sea.
In contrast, the Titan did not have its own mother ship and, to save money, was towed out to sea on the fatal dive by a smaller charter ship, the Polar Prince.
The Polar Prince, a decommissioned Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, was smaller and older than the ships OceanGate had used in previous years, which Rush used as a cost-cutting measure.
Using a tow cable, the ship towed the Titan across hundreds of kilometers of open sea on the launch platform used to submerge and retrieve the submarine.
The Alvin research submarine is transported to diving sites on the deck of a special mothership equipped with custom-made winches and a large crane that lowers it into the sea
In a column for Travel Weekly, Arnie Weissman told the harrowing story of a “near-disaster for the submarine and platform” at sea.
“At the end of the rope connecting the stern of the ship to the platform, we saw that the front of the platform and the submarine were under water,” he wrote.
It was not clear what had happened, but crew members suspected that a fishing buoy discovered in the area may have become tangled with a line in the platform and dragged it under the platform, causing the air tanks to fill with water.
Attempts to raise the platform using a towline buoy were unsuccessful, and Rush had to send out divers to remove water from the platform’s bouncy tanks, which took half a day.
The fishing line was found to have become tangled in the platform, leaving the cause of the incident unclear.
Weissman recalled that when asked if the incident had endangered the submarine, Rush joked, “So a submarine is under water. ‘Why is that a problem?’
Prioritize the admission of additional people
Alvin, the famous research submersible of the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has a spherical design.
In the depths of the ocean, a sphere has the optimal shape to withstand compression pressures that can reach three tons per square inch because the pressure is evenly distributed across the hull.
The Alvin’s downside is its limited capacity – the submarine can only fit three people to the seabed.
Titan’s design was more spacious, accommodating five people in a pill-shaped submarine made of a carbon fiber tube covered with titanium hemispheres at both ends
Rush, who charged $250,000 per passenger for his dives on the Titanic wreck, would have been able to take just two customers per trip with a similar design if an OceanGate pilot had come along.
Instead, its titanium design was more spacious, accommodating five people in a pill-shaped submarine made of a carbon fiber tube capped at both ends with titanium hemispheres.
Tim Foecke, a retired forensic metallurgist, told the Times that the change in Titan’s hull geometry – from a narrow sphere to a long tube – may have contributed to the submarine’s catastrophic failure.
He found that the larger a submarine is, the stronger and thicker its hull must be to withstand the same pressure.
For two submarines with the same hull thickness, the larger one would “collapse or buckle” first, he said.
Choose carbon fiber
One of Rush’s key innovations on the Titan was the use of carbon fiber for much of the hull, which is cheaper and lighter than titanium
One of Rush’s key innovations on the Titan was the use of carbon fiber for much of the hull, which is cheaper and lighter than titanium.
On its website, OceanGate promoted the Titan’s carbon fiber construction with titanium end caps as “lighter in weight and more efficient in mobilization than other deep diving submersibles.”
The material reduced Titan’s weight to 21,000 pounds, compared to Alvin’s 45,000 pounds.
However, experts say carbon composites are much more resistant to tensile forces than compressive forces.
“I was very surprised” by the Titan’s fiber construction, Foecke told the Times, because compression was the primary force the submersible experienced during its deep-sea dives.
Carbon composites also have a limited lifespan when subjected to excessive loads or poor design, leading to stress concentrations, said Jasper Graham-Jones, associate professor of mechanical and marine engineering at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.
“Yes, composite materials are extremely robust. Yes, composite materials are extremely durable. But we have problems with composites and the fact that composites fail in slightly different ways than other materials,” he told the Associated Press.
In addition, Titan’s 5-inch-thick hull had been subjected to repeated stress over the course of about two dozen previous dives, Graham-Jones said.
With every trip, tiny cracks would appear in the structure. “Initially it may be small and inconspicuous, but soon it would become critical and lead to rapid and uncontrollable growth,” he said.
The use of glue
The Titan’s design required attaching its carbon fiber tube to the Titan end caps, which was achieved with strong glue.
But experts say maintaining a seal between them can be challenging because different materials deform at different rates under pressure.
Alfred S. McLaren, a retired Navy submariner and president emeritus of the Explorers Club of New York City, explained that the different materials in the Titan’s hull “have different coefficients of expansion and compression, which is detrimental to maintaining a watertight connection.”
This image shows a titanium ring being connected to the Titan’s carbon tube hull. Because different materials change shape at different rates under pressure, maintaining a seal between them can be challenging
In other words, if the carbon fiber tube compressed slightly differently than the titanium end caps, it could have compromised the seal between them, especially after repeated dives.
Experts have also questioned OceanGate’s refusal to seek outside testing and certification for the Titan.
Graham-Jones said it was standard engineering practice to seek outside expertise to ensure ships meet the highest industry standards.
In a 2019 company blog post, OceanGate criticized the third-party certification process as time-consuming and inhibiting innovation.
“Keeping an outside company abreast of every innovation before putting it into practice is anathema to rapid innovation,” the post says.