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 carbon fiber hull likely failed "insidiously over time" due to repeated, prolonged extreme compressive loads causing undetectable internal microbuckling and delamination within the composite material.
Unlike carbon fiber aircraft components, which are extensively tested and experience extreme loads only briefly, *Titan* was subjected to intense, prolonged pressure on every deep-sea descent, accelerating structural deterioration.
*Titan* was an unclassed, experimental prototype that lacked the rigorous certification, testing, and safety oversight mandated for aircraft, leading to a critically short service life compared to certified composite airframes.

See a mistake? Contact us.

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.)