The spherical half-cap that formed the prow of the Titan
Among the vestiges located by the North American rescue teams, there is one that is essential for the researchers: the spherical half-shell which formed the bow of the Titan and which is intact.
Spanish engineer and submarine expert, José Luis Martín, explains to NIUS what can be assumed in the investigation, what he clarifies on the account of the facts and why this piece did not undergo any type deformation
Video Shows How Titan’s Implosion Could Have Been
On June 29, nine days after the Titan’s disappearance, North American rescue teams located several pieces of the submersible as well as human remains nearly 4,000 meters deep. The Horizon Arctic, flying the Canadian flag, transported these fragments to San Juan in Newfoundland. There, the technicians unloaded these pieces from the bathyscaphe. Among all, We’re going to focus on one that went unnoticed at the time: the spherical half-cap that formed the prow of the Titan. It is a hemispherical piece, gray in colorequipped with a porthole which allowed the occupants of the submersible to see the outside.
And there is one detail that may be very relevant to the investigation. This part of the bow is intact. But why is it complete, without deformations or fractures after the catastrophic implosion? According to Spanish engineer and submarine expert José Luis Martín, the image in this piece “contains all the information to understand the tragedy of the Titan”.
“That this piece is intact, without cracks and cracks, is the key to everything. His condition indicates that he was ejected from the cylindrical part at supersonic speed.” assures Martín, who gives a “house” example to understand what happened. “We are going to imagine a plastic bottle. We take it, without water, and put it on a surface in a horizontal position. And we will unscrew the cork almost to the end. Now we squeeze it at high speed. cap shoots like an arrow Well, that’s what happened with the Titan, ”explains the submarine expert. “The cap in this case would be the piece that formed the bow and was found undamaged. The rest of the bottle would be what was left of the submersible.”
These data, according to Martín, confirms the chain of events which he defends as “the only plausible hypothesis” of what happened. “The sudden increase in pressure, which was instantaneous, deformed the hull and compressed it. By compressing it, it lost its cylindrical shape, then the fall occurred. The fall was instantaneous, the hull could not withstand this instantaneous increase in pressure and collapsed. . The spherical half-hood was ejected at an incredible speed and that is why it remained intact.” This image, which shows the intact piece that makes up the bow, would validate – according to Martín – his sequence of events.
- The submersible has an electrical problem while it is about 1,700 meters deep. At this level it supports a pressure of 170 kilos per square centimeter. But in the case of the Titan, there is an “astronomical design error”, according to Martín. “It does not have an access hatch like all the submarines known to date. And the entrance is through a quasi-hemispherical mobile structure, articulated and fixed by screws.”
- Running out of power, the submersible quickly changes position due to the weight of about 400 kilos (of the five occupants) concentrated in the bow of the submersible
- Because of this position, the Titan “falls vertically like a downward arrow.”
- By falling suddenly to a depth of 900 or 1,000 meters, the hull receives an instantaneous increase in pressure of the order of 90 to 100 kilos per square centimeter, which results in “a sudden contraction due to the instantaneous reduction of the diameter by the cylindrical part”.
- At this time the water enters then, between 2,500 and 2,700 meters deep “the submarine imploded by putting on the habitable part of the interior of the hull which was at the atmospheric pressure of 1kg/cm2, to 270kg/cm2 in a few thousandths of a second.”
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This account of facts It was made by the Spanish engineer José Luis Martín taking into account these calculations made by himself and can be viewed here.
For Martín, the main conclusion about what happened is very clear: “The Titan submersible had the worst possible construction design due to the disastrous system of access to the submarine by a hinged and bolted structure”.
Moreover, it points to pilot inexperience as a possible cause of electrical problems. “What knowledge did Stockton Rush have of oceanography and ocean currents? The Gulf Stream, which had a current speed equal to the speed of the Titan. So, in order not to be carried away by the current and to be able to maneuver in complete safety, he had to force the batteries of the submarine. He forced them so hard that it caused the electrical control system to break down,” Martín assures. “I’m convinced that’s what happened. And that triggered what was already inevitable at the time, the implosion of the submersible.”
48 seconds of horror
A few days ago the engineer had already done some calculations for NIUS which determined that theThe Titan’s “freefall” lasted between 48 and 71 seconds. This is the time that elapsed between when the Titan was destabilized and when it imploded in the waters of the North Atlantic. The submersible descended in a vertical position, “as if it were a stone and without any control”, for about 900 meters. According to the submarine’s expert, the passengers fell and “stacked on top of each other”. “It had to be like a horror movie,” Martín explained in an interview with NIUS.
The engineer obtained this data taking into account the weight of the submersible, the thrust, the mass, the acceleration, the speed of fall of a free body and the coefficient of friction that the water exerts against a falling body. The calculations can be viewed here, in this report by José Luis Martín for NIUS.
Almost a month after what happened
Nearly a month has passed since the Titan’s disappearance and two weeks since the remains of the OceanaGate bathyscaphe were located. Both official and parallel investigations are continuing. On one side the Canadian and on the other the American.
Researchers are still faced with many questions that have not yet been answered.
Why did OceanGate, the Titan company, receive the green light to embark tourists in an unlicensed and experimental submersible? Why did Stockton Rush, co-founder and CEO of OceanGate, ignore the serious security issues facing him? What caused the electrical failure that eventually caused the implosion? The authorities of which country are responsible for the fact that the Titan managed to sink? Or what does the Titan disaster mean for the future of tourist scuba diving?
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