Best Titan Sub Implosion Simulation, Cracked Porthole? Q & A

Jeff Ostroff shows 3 new very well-produced Titan Sub implosion simulations to determine if the passengers in the Oceangate Ttian Sub felt anything when the sub implosion occurred. He also answers Q&A about topics such as the alleged cracked Titan porthole, which is the 21" Acrylic viewport window, which many photos online appear to show cracks in the plexiglass.

What is the weight of the Titan acrylic port-hole window? According to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, you'll see him in this video stating the viewport window weighs 80 pounds. The
titan implosion simulation videos will help you see how the Oceangate sub imploded.

📺 AlanXelMundo Video of his Titanic Expedition "Mi expedición al TITANIC parte 1/4"
📺 Dr. Robert Wagner, "OceanGate: Simulation of Titan Implosion in ABAQUS"

00:00 Introduction to Titan implosion simulation
00:28 Titan implosion simulation of carbon fiber cylinder midsection
01:49 Frame by Frame step through of Titan sub implosion simulation
03:41 2nd Titan Implosion simulation of acrylic porthole viewport window failure
04:15 3rd animated sub implosion simulation
05:30 Alan xElMundo video of Stockton Rush showing acrylic porthole
06:38 Cracked Titan acrylic porthole window?
08:14 OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush shows closeup mechanics of Titan Submersible
09:49 What about cameras and salvaging photos from the Titan Sub implosion?
11:16 KOMO News 4 video of OceanGate Titan sub under construction 2018

[twincams]

The port hole window was only certified to 1300meters by the manufacturer. The manufacturer offered to redesign it to withstand 4000m, which would be 200m deeper than the titanic wreckage, but OceanGate didn't want to pay for that, and instead fired the employee that was making a fuss over it (Lochridge). This is a damning fact.

[sarodorethedragon]

As a drafting design student my money is on the glue between the titanium and carbon fiber, there’s too much movement there under each compression cycle to even remotely consider the viewport. If I was an investigator that’s the first place I’d look just because of the strength difference in material and the fact it’s a cycle fatigue hot spot

[kirbywaite]

Rush's constant reassurance that there would always be " warnings" is insane.

[notsparks]

I actually was on this submersible when I applied for a job with the company. We went out in Puget Sound only like 600-800ft deep, saw some stuff, and had some folks from the UW on with us studying the marine ecosystem. Even that short trip of 90-120 minutes gave me pause. We had an issue with the joystick connection and were without control for what seemed like forever but probably was 5-10 seconds. After hearing that this wasn't uncommon, I chose to work elsewhere. The rapper Macklemore was on it, too, for a shark week episode. This was before they began going to the titanic.

[brunosarue]

What still caught my attention is how preserved the titanium parts are. It seems it was the right material to be used in the whole body of the sub.

[mariemccann]

Every time I see this so-called sub, the hobby shop nature of the whole build gets more and more unbelievable!

[kev_]

He coated his submersible with truck bed liner claiming “it’s what the military uses”… as a floor coating. The military doesn’t use Rhinoliner to keep water out of submarines! 🤦‍♂️

[jimschutz]

It's very strange to me when Stockton says at 6:05..."It gives a huge warning before it's going to fail." when discussing the porthole lens. He seems to think that he will be given all the time in the world to surface and re-design the craft after hearing that the portal lens is failing.

[Euquila]

There would have definitely been some loud creaking for about 10 seconds as the acrylic began to fail. It would have resonated louder and louder in that small capsule. What a terrifying thing

[carlmalone]

What looks like cracking, is an optical grease that is used to seal the tapered surface of the acrylic into its seat in the titanium end cap. Under pressure, the acrylic is forced inwards and the grease helps it seal.

[Huhgundai]

Stockton was so confident. Goes to show how terrible of a weapon something like charisma can be if used in the wrong hands

[nadapenny]

Hi Jeff - used to work on aircraft with windows made of a similar material. What you're seeing from the photo on the OceanGate website is called "crazing" and is usually a result of exposure to high heat or electricity - example, you usually find crazing near the de-icing elements built into the windshields. I don't know what effect crazing has on the ability of acrylic to withstand high pressure. Our rule was to replace the window if the crazing was more than 1/2" or it interfered with the pilot's vision. To my knowledge that wasn't so much out of concern for any breaking, but more because the crazing lines can refract light, and lights are extremely important for navigating at night or in any kind of rain or fog.

Edit: just saw another comment where someone says it's optical grease to help the acrylic seal as it's pushed inward by outside forces. No reason not to believe that, makes sense. Maybe investigate crazing just to see if that would be a likely culprit?

[BlahBlahManYeah]

Rhino liner is sprayable liner that would be applied to truck beds. Again, we see that Titan was a pot luck of various materials. Rule of thumb, as you combine various materials you increase complexly of joints as well as adding more variables in expansion/contraction puzzle.

[schm]

Thank you for continuing to do these videos; I don’t feel like I have to go searching around all kinds of channels for speculation and news since you bring them all together. Thanks!!

[babyk]

Hi Jeff. This Super Thanks is because of your acknowledgement, in your video, that God made us! Sooo refreshing!

[KelliRocks]

The fact that he honestly thought that you'd get a warning from the acrylic glass cracking is beyond stupid.

[pugsymalone]

Ex submarine sailor here. I think that when they dropped ballast and/or the landing skid, the vessel went vertical with the stern down. Everyone was in a pile on top of the pilot until it imploded. They knew what was happening. That toy submarine didn't have any way to maintain the horizontal orientation once things went bad. Any small problem with buoyancy or trim became a lethal problem in seconds.

[asandiegoguy]

Jeff provides by far the most interesting and thoroughly researched content on engineering failures.

[rocroc]

Some report that they had about 19 minutes to deal with problems related to the craft. Whatever the time might have been, you can bet it was a fearful situation with death knocking at the door. If you are busy trying to save your life that's one thing but if you are locked in a container near the bottom of the deep ocean with nothing you can do that is wholly different. I heard one person who had taken a trip on the craft reporting that the sound he heard wasn't just creaking but at times sounded like a gun firing. I think the situation was very grim and worse than has been described.

[paulgallagher]

Mechanical things don't necessarily fail at the "red" points on an FEA. They tend to fail at the highest stress points. In this case, the highest stressed points was the glued interface of the shell and titanium rings. There was so many bad things happening there, its almost impossible to model it. If they did have a good bond, then the flexing of the hull under pressure would break that bond and damage the CF in the process. If it wasn't bonded, then water could ingress and get into the CF laminations. The hull would be compressed much more than the titanium, so the edge of the titanium would be cutting into the CF little by little. I'd like to see somebody model this for real and test it.