What We Can Learn from Ill-Fated Titan Submersible

Titan submersible's service life limit unfortunately appears to have been only about a day or two.

Friday, January 19, 2024 at 05:53 PM ET

Verified

Until the investigation of the accident is completed, we will not be certain why the 'Titan' submersible failed in June 2023. [iStock]

Key Takeaways:

The Titan submersible's failure likely resulted from the "insidious" fatigue of carbon fiber composites under repeated, prolonged extreme compressive loads, leading to hard-to-detect internal microcracks and delaminations.
Unlike aircraft, which experience intermittent and brief peak loads, the Titan was subjected to constant, severe pressure on every dive, accelerating the deterioration of its experimental composite hull.
The absence of rigorous testing, certification, and oversight, standard for aircraft, meant the Titan's design did not adequately account for the cumulative effects of its unique high-pressure environment, leading to its catastrophic failure and extremely short service life.

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After the implosion of the submersible Titan in June, my friend Howard Morland wrote to me: “Cameron said it was ‘insidious’ the way composite carbon fiber materials ‘fail over time.’ This statement made me think of Melmoth 2. Any relevance?”

(Cameron being James Cameron, the film director and undersea explorer who was an early and outspoken critic of the Titan project; Melmoth 2 being my homebuilt airplane, whose wing structure consists mainly of carbon fiber composites. An unnamed third party in the drama is Stockton Rush, the designer of Titan and, like me, a self-taught amateur engineer.)