Last June 18, 2023the tragic event of the Titan submarinea submersible that carried five occupants to the place where the Titanicbut which unfortunately imploded at a considerable depth, just a few 500 meters of the remains of the famous liner.
Recently, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)the prestigious multidisciplinary scientific journal published by the United States National Academy of Sciences which publishes original research in a wide range of scientific fields, including biology, medicine, engineering, mathematics, physics and social sciences, presents new findings about the tragic event last June 2023.
According to researchers from the University of Houstonthe study suggests that small imperfections in the submarine's hull could have played a role in the tragedy.
The study
The head of the research and professor of civil and environmental engineering, Roberto Ballariniexplains that “the integrity of the submarine may have been compromised by damage to the material used for its hull that accumulated during the many voyages it made before the collapse.”
''The material used for the Titan's hull was a carbon fiber composite. It is well known that under compression loads, the fibers of such composites are susceptible to microbuckling and can delaminate from the matrix that surrounds them,'' the study states.
“If Titan's hull experienced such damage under the extreme compression pressures it experienced during its dives, then its rigidity and strength would have decreased significantly and, together with the inevitable geometric imperfections introduced during its manufacture, could have contributed to its buckling.” ', he concludes.