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"At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of th
by Solvency 3y ago
"At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 meters. Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (“PVHO”) standards. OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters."
Well, that about it settles what happened.
- wongarsu 3y agoThe sub has already survived multiple dives to 4000 meters, and so far nobody has come out with reports of any apparent problems with the viewport. Maybe it failed from an impact or from accumulated fractures from all these pressure cycles, but I'm also completely willing to believe that the depth-rating for human occupancy has enough of a safety factor that going 3 times deeper doesn't lead to failure. From the pre-accident reports about the sub it seems like hull integrity was the thing they actually cared about the most, with everything else being in an even worse state. My money would be on the sub drifting somewhere with no power or no control or whatever.
- lagolinguini 3y agoNot an expert on submarine design, but if it's comparable to aircraft, each pressurization-depressurization cycle actually increases the stress on the vessel. Just because it worked once doesn't necessarily mean it will always work. https://simpleflying.com/pressurization-cycles-aircraft-lifespan/ https://simpleflying.com/pressurization-cycles-aircraft-life...
- andromeduck 3y agoYeah for which carbon fiber yube is a far more likely failure point given it's ulyrw low longitudinal compression strength not to mention risk of cyclic failure from delamination.
- rurp 3y ago> The sub has already survived multiple dives to 4000 meters, and so far nobody has come out with reports of any apparent problems The goal is to have extremely high reliability at the given rating. Not failing for a half dozen trips is nearly meaningless. Safety critical equipment is expected to meet the rated load thousands of times without issue. Using equipment well outside its rated working load, in situation where failures kill people, is highly irresponsible.
- Aperocky 3y agoIf the banging sound article was correct, it sounds like they had a failure of the ballast not coming off... I wonder how many layer of safety there is, there should probably be at least 3 independent ways that ballast can come off when your life depends on it..
- howenterprisey 3y agoWhich article?
- ssnistfajen 3y agoAccording to this article, the submersible had 7 safety features, 5 of which involves shedding weights: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65965665 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65965665
- Aperocky 3y agoHopefully all of these features are independently tested.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoWhy would you need to test it? You only use it in an emergency
- salawat 3y ago>"You'll never do a wind up turn in a normal flight regime." -Somebody at Boeing about MCAS at some point, probably. Besides which, shedding ballast is part of it's normal operational cycle. One would hope that would be bulletproof.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]