TITAN Sub implosion | Quick Response Animation Explanation

The Titan a submersible purpose built for diving the 12,500 feet to the Titanic wreck suffered a catastrophic implosion on Sunday Jun 18, 2023 at around 9:30am.
This is a story of hubris when unforgiving nature of deep submergence required following the best engineering science.

Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of:
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
Hamish Harding
Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman
Stockton Rush, Ocean Gate CEO and pilot

[dotRB]

"The ocean does not care if you are rich. But it does favor those who respect engineering and science, ahead of hubris and gut feel innovation" Beautiful said!

[hagerty]

4:55 I did vacuum design and engineering for a couple of decades. I designed several chambers for the aerospace industry (for testing spacecraft components) that were roughly the size of the Titan's crew compartment. The hemispherical end caps were 1/8" thick stainless steel ("helmet heads" for those in the biz) while the cylindrical center section was 1/4" thick SST, seam welded inside and out. And this is to hold out only 1 atmosphere, not the 400+ at Titanic's depth!

Any design engineer will tell you that a carbon fiber composite can never be used this way. It's not that they didn't overlap or bias-wind the structure, it's the material itself. The fibers in the composite are immensely strong in tension, but have zero strength in compression. That's why you can use it to make pressure tanks and vessels as the "hoop stresses" from the inside pressure cause the cylinder to try and expand, which is very efficiently resisted by the strength of the fibers. But when the forces are reversed, and the pressure is on the outside, the cylinder is compressed smaller, meaning that the fibers go slack, and provide nothing to the strength of the structure. The only thing holding the pressure is the matrix between the fibers (epoxy in this case). Epoxy is very strong in compression, but also very brittle. It will crack when flexed, meaning an absolutely guaranteed failure in a few cycles. I'm actually amazed they got that many dives out of it.

There's a good reason that "the experts" were all warning him, and insisting on more and different testing, and it's not just that they were jealous of his innovative "free thinking" mindset.e

[ElLuis]

So, at the end it was pretty much just a gigantic soda can wrapped up with extra material, hoses and cables. No one can even call it a floating casket cause everyone inside just disintegrated. The implosion animation here gave me the chills. Great job! Amazing video.

[emmcee]

This was very nicely done. The demonstration with the soda can was both captivating and haunting

[sigurdkaputnik]

Thanks Mike. Now that's what i call an informative, understandable and educational presentation of what happened. No unnecessary dramatization or boring fillers. Just pure on-point information.

[Elyse]

I’ve watched a lot of these informational videos on the titan and this is by far the clearest and best explained one. Thanks

[GMarieBehindTheMask]

Best Example I've seen so far! Not being overly complicated simply put, to the point!

[andrewtabaka]

I am an engineering student that literally has just taken a class on carbon composites and one of the main things I learned about pressure vessels is that layup should be around 55 degrees from horizontal to maximize strength. If they didn't even put that kind of consideration into the orthotropic nature of carbon fibers I don't think they put much thought into the design of this vessel. It is such a shame.

[Honestcritic]

This is the most accurate animation that I have seen. You kept the certain parts intact, while others usually have those crush as well.

[crazyfutureradio]

This is the most accurate animation of what happened. All the others are so slow.

[SYLperc]

that implosion. It's really hard to grasp how violent and quick it must have been. under 6000psi, the volume of air in the pressure tube would have compressed to something like 1/500th its original size, at supersonic speeds, igniting the air, and pulverizing anything within it.

[TBone]

Excellent video! Thanks for the most detailed and no-nonsense explanation I've seen on this event. Like you, I sort of knew when the last signal received from Titan was an hour and forty-five minutes into the dive, something catastrophic had happened right then. There was absolutely no need for the days of news reports telling how much air they supposedly had left. Again, thanks for a great video.

[carmenhemet]

This is by far the best illustration and demonstration of exactly what happened. Really nice job! My condolences to the families of the passengers in the submersible.

[sirblebington]

This is exactly the video I was hoping someone would make. Thank you.

[aliseiler]

Presentation on point with dynamic graphics and illustrations. Well done!

[DrBilly]

When you design with carbon fiber, most times you end up chasing away its shortcomings until its benefits have been nulled. Weight is often the biggest advantage of CF but as soon as you need metal doubler plates, and joint reinforcement, and end fittings, you’ve introduced so much complexity that machining and iso grid structure makes more sense. CF is a material you use with great intention and foresight/testing.

[Machete]

This is a very respectful video on such a terrible incident. Thank you.

[nevasoba]

In an interview one of Rush's friends said that in a previous dive they heard a cracking noise during the decent. I believe the friend told him after that they shouldn't dive in the Titan again.

[randomvintagefilm]

Rush actually said that safety standards get in the way of innovation. Wow!

[mikewebber]

The carbon wrap process was shocking, I initially thought it was a demo. I've worked in F1 and Aviation on the 787's wing. So, I have a background in this field. There are many air gaps in the wrap that can be compressed, with stored energy with an uncontrolled release.