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Post by SeaRat on Jun 22, 2023 21:46:43 GMT -8
As probably all of you, I have been following the tragedy of the loss of the Titan commercial submersible with interest. Some of the things that really hit home to me were news about how this submersible was built, and apparent discrepancies in the building and testing of the submersible. Here are a couple of things that really hit me about this event.
—Apparently, the carbon fiber hull was originally to be 7 inches thick, but when delivered was 5 inches thick. This, from some of the news I’ve heard, led at least one employee to either quit or be fired when he brought up concerns.
—The CEO, Stockton Rush, decided not to go through the testing process that normally qualifies a submersible, saying that the process inhibited innovation. They went through an internal review, and declared the submersible safe.
—There were questions about whether carbon fiber was appropriate for a hull’s material. I heard on Anderson Cooper one expert say that carbon fiber was great for tension, but not so good for compression.
All this leads me to my role as a safety person in times past. I have a saying that the safety and testing rules are “written in blood.” People who would say that OSHA regulations, for instance, are too arduous do not realize the history behind those regulations. The same can be said for the industry standards for qualifying an occupied submersible.
Now, how does this event, or the observations, affect what we are doing? Well, we are taking life safety equipment (regulators) and modifying them. In doing so, we are also potentially having others use these life support devices, and therefore may be adding inadvertent risk. I’m thinking of my “Single to Double Hose” experiments. I will continue them, but know that there is the potential for introducing additional risks to some people. One that I’m thinking about is the potential for CO2 rebreathing with the hose loop I am proposing. This right now seems to be a rather low risk, but I need to do some calculations and also some testing before promoting it as a viable alternative.
Just some thoughts as this tragedy unfolds.
John
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Post by nikeajax on Jun 23, 2023 7:49:41 GMT -8
John, yes, it's always good to stop and think about what you're doing, but... The way I'm seeing it, we're pretty much working within the confines of a very proven, if not over-proven technology.
The trouble that people get into is when ego/pride and money/greed are infused with nostalgia/adventure. The picture that pops into my mind is Mount Everest: how many bodies of rich people and their junk as well as the innocent Sherpas litter that mountain?
Fer cryin' out loud! That stupid submarine ride cost $250 K... (insert the sound of choking and gasping) When I was a boy I thought the whole Titanic thing was so romantic, but the more I know about it, the more I despise that horrible thing: everything from who was allowed to get a job working on it, to the cattle passengers and lack of life boats...
JB
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Post by nikeajax on Jun 23, 2023 8:06:25 GMT -8
I know Phil, he's a personal friend of mine, and though I haven't actually met James, I have had enough conversations with him to know he's an above-board kinda guy... While I was brushing my teeth just now, I was picturing the two of them plotting, rubbing their hands together in treachery: James: If I melt down old plastic bags, I can save fifty cents, just think of it! Phil: If I melt down old zippers and blue jean rivets... Sorry guys, I just had to  JB |
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Post by nikeajax on Jun 23, 2023 11:00:55 GMT -8
John, this dovetails in perfectly:
JB
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Post by SeaRat on Jun 23, 2023 11:33:29 GMT -8
Wow, thanks JB. I had not heard of the SS Eastland.
John
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Post by SeaRat on Jun 23, 2023 12:05:27 GMT -8
You know, as I think about it, what we in the vintage diving community here are doing is a lot of correction of manufacturing mistakes from the past. I think about my Trieste II and the three manufacturing errors that AMF Voit made with that regulator (a pre-set in the diaphragm, lack of Venturi, and orientation on the intake horn), and the time and effort made to correct these mistakes, making the product actually safer and with a better design. We now have silicone diaphragms for the Dacor double hose regulators, for instance, that out-perform the originals. Same can be said for the new silicone diaphragms for the Healthways Scuba versions, and for the Voit/U.S. Divers Company double hose regulators. So after thinking about it, I’m wondering about the R & D of diving companies, and how they come to some of their decisions.
John
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Post by h2operations on Jun 24, 2023 6:17:48 GMT -8
John, thank you for bringing this topic up. I think a focal point is what we do here is for the benefit of our own curiosity and not for financial gain. A lot of us have had to work out risk vs reward or risk vs injury in our lives. I know in your past life this was a major concern. There are a couple common threads when looking at these tragedies.. $$ over Sense and/or Ego over logic. I find if more concerning that after this tragedy there are people saying they had concerns over it's construction.
Peace.
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Post by spirou on Jun 24, 2023 6:38:49 GMT -8
Murphy's law, human sufficiency, money, overconfidence in technology at different times, the lessons of the titanic, and other announced disasters, dam rupture, cable car accident, and others...There will always be and in multiple areas. Regarding the Voit trieste, the first stage is good, but AMF did not want to concentrate the necessary efforts, because when it was released it was clear that the double hose regulators were doomed to disappear in a short time. It is clear that the use of parts using modern materials and design, validated by the diving industry, allows us to be able to take advantage of our vintage regulators. In addition, talented enthusiasts are making improvements to some, making them more efficient than the originals. However, it is always necessary to keep in mind the safety aspect, and a level training, in order to be able to react in an adequate way. Fred |
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Post by nikeajax on Jun 24, 2023 12:40:18 GMT -8
"Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/; from Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris) 'pride, insolence, outrage'), or less frequently hybris (/ˈhaɪbrɪs/), describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning "to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people". To arrogate means "to claim or seize without justification... To make undue claims to having", or "to claim or seize without right... to ascribe or attribute without reason". The term pretension is also associated with the term hubris, but is not synonymous with it."
JB
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Post by Aquala1 on Jun 28, 2023 19:51:18 GMT -8
I think it does and I’m surprised in myself how much the loss of the Titan has bothered me. People die every day in accidents, and I even serve on a Sheriff’s Office dive team and our job is to recover bodies, but that’s never bothered me.
The Titan though is different. Maybe it’s because we’re all underwater explorers whether we explore the shallows on scuba or the depths in submersibles, we’re all in the same family. That or maybe because I once considered building my own steel hulled submersible. I’m not sure but the Titan is haunting and maybe it’s because of the link between their experimental sub and our restoration and modification of regs which are somewhat experimental.
Experimental in that in all of my years of diving (since 1984) only double hose regs have failed me. My first failure was a port plug o-ring blowing right after jumping in on a new Argonaut Kraken. Fortunately it blew on the surface and not a little later when I’d have been over 100 feet on the Cayman wall. The second failure was when the duckbill eliminator mushroom valve stuck to the main diaphragm locking the whole reg up and making it unbreathable at 90 feet. That was on the Kraken but now in DA cans and not the plastic body. The third was when a new blue seat came dislodged resulting in a fairly violent free flow during a pool test on the Trieste/Black 50 Fathoms.
All were survivable but a little unnerving and embarrassing since all were either on a dive charter boat or in the case of the pool failure, in front of a dive class.
I guess I sympathize because I’ve had failures that I’ve been fortunate enough to survive. They didn’t have the same fortune and that is sad beyond measure.
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Post by vance on Jun 29, 2023 9:21:02 GMT -8
The experimental/modded regulators do cause me concern. We are not industry/corporations that can invest hundreds of hours in testing, etc. I was particularly unnerved by the couple of issues I have experienced, which have been mostly concerned seats. I have also had the blue LP puck come loose, and have had a NOS Voit HP seat explode into a million pieces. Fortunately, I was pool testing as well.
These things could have had a very bad outcome in the ocean, at depth. Anyone who does this kind of experimentation and anyone who mods their equipment must be very aware that they are taking a risk, and should never get too comfortable until their equipment proves itself.
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Post by SeaRat on Jun 29, 2023 10:44:21 GMT -8
The experimental/modded regulators do cause me concern. We are not industry/corporations that can invest hundreds of hours in testing, etc. I was particularly unnerved by the couple of issues I have experienced, which have been mostly concerned seats. I have also had the blue LP puck come loose, and have had a NOS Voit HP seat explode into a million pieces. Fortunately, I was pool testing as well. These things could have had a very bad outcome in the ocean, at depth. Anyone who does this kind of experimentation and anyone who mods their equipment must be very aware that they are taking a risk, and should never get too comfortable until their equipment proves itself. I agree totally. I used to have a saying that if I had a new piece of experimental equipment, I had to test it in a pool before taking it to open water. This is how I "qualified" the piece of equipment for open water (the Clackamas River, essentially). I did that with several regulaors. The one test I did on the Aquamatic I did in only 4 feet of water, in the shallow end of the pool. I determined that I would never use that regulator in open water, nor even in the deep end of the pool.  IMG_1002 by John Ratliff, on Flickr The Aquamatic, which I will only use in stand-up water depths.   John diving Dacor R-3 by John Ratliff, on Flickr Pool testing my Dacor R-3 Dial-a-Breath regulato; I also pool tested the R-3 (no Venturi) regulator under similar circumstances. Another time, I was testing my Trieste II, and found it much, much better than it was before I had made the 3 modifications to it. One of those modifications was to the diaphragm, which I had home-built out of the old, neoprene diaphragm with a "set" in it. I built it out of neoprene-impregnated nylon, like the older MR-12 diaphragms, and glued the plate to the diaphragm. I had determined that this was ready for open water, and dived it many hundreds of times. But, when diving Edmonds Underwater Park with my friend, Bruce Higgins (who actually built this park), I had a total loss of air with my Trieste II. One of the mods was to glue a Healthways deflector plate from the Gold Label Scuba into a curved mouthpiece, as I needed it with the increased Venturi from the reconfigured LP outlet holes. Well, that plate came loose and adhered to the silicone inhalation non-return valve in the mouthpiece, completely cutting off my air supply. Because I had tested these configurations in the pool, I had determined that I would not dive this Trieste II without an octopus; an MR-12 (original) served that purpose. So I simply switched to my MR-12 second stage, and completed the dive (we were ascending from deep water to exit anyway. Because I had taken the time to "qualify" this regulator, and determined that it needed backup in the form of an octopus immediately available, I was able to simply switch and exit the dive. I no longer use this curved mouthpiece, having replaced it with the DSV mouthpiece a few years back. I have had one regulator, a Dacor Pacer Aero plastic stage, malfunction on me. I was diving High Rocks on the Clackamas River, and had recently serviced this regulator. That involved taking off the cover and diaphragm and ensuring that the second stage had no "stuff" inside. I put it back on, put the diaphragm on, and screwed down the cap of the regulator, making sure it was tight enough. I even took some breaths from it, and it worked. But in the water, the first breath I took was water-only. I immediately switched to my octopus and completed the dive on it (an Enduro second stage). I now do not only a breathing check on these regulators, but a suction check to see if it holds suction, or lets air in, after service.  IMG_0080 by John Ratliff, on Flickr Note the sealing surface is different from a lot of regulators, and allowed the diaphragm to become folded over when screwing on the regulator's cap. I have a number of other examples, but this will do for now. Unfortunately, I lost my pool for testing, due to the fact that the THPRD pool no longer allows scuba. So now I'm testing things in the Tualatin River, a shallow, slow-moving river with less visibility (usually about 5 feet). I'm trying to get the pool back, so we'll see... John |
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Post by antique diver on Jun 29, 2023 10:57:49 GMT -8
The experimental/modded regulators do cause me concern. We are not industry/corporations that can invest hundreds of hours in testing, etc. I was particularly unnerved by the couple of issues I have experienced, which have been mostly concerned seats. I have also had the blue LP puck come loose, and have had a NOS Voit HP seat explode into a million pieces. Fortunately, I was pool testing as well. These things could have had a very bad outcome in the ocean, at depth. Anyone who does this kind of experimentation and anyone who mods their equipment must be very aware that they are taking a risk, and should never get too comfortable until their equipment proves itself. I personally don't like the blue LP seats, and have quit using them. It seems like some commonly used adhesives don't like them either, and just won't stick. I think they must be made of some Silicone compound. About HP Seats... the original black Voit, Mares and USD high pressure seats... They have a history of short to very short lifespans before pitting or de-laminating. Had multiple MR12-3 HP seats blow out on barely used regulators, including one on it's first dive. They were getting so bad that we always replaced them with the blue USD seats. If you decide to do this, be careful that the original HP pin in your regulator sits in at the same depth as with original stock seats. You may see instances of needing to shape a new pin to proper length. Absolutely Do Not use the blue-green USD seats that preceded the blue ones. They do not have the outer rim reinforced with the metal poppet carrier, and can come apart. I had one in my RAM extrude into the HP cone orifice and stop airflow. Didn't seem very funny at the time. I have seen others crumble and leak. I have posted a photo of that before, but if anyone is uncertain of how to recognize those let me know and I'll post it again. |
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Post by nikeajax on Jun 29, 2023 11:02:23 GMT -8
Ty, my wife and I were talking the other day and she mentioned hearing that with submersibles the hulls should never be composite, especially if they go that deep: the reasoning is that the two materials will always de-laminate/separate from each other in decompression because they are unlike materials  This is like how two different metals expand and contract differently which allows you to make contact-switches, like in automobile turn-signals. How long have they been making steel hulled submarines: well over 100-years: the tech is very proven! Carbon fiber has its place, but that tech isn't that old... JB |
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Post by Aquala1 on Jul 1, 2023 16:05:39 GMT -8
JB, there are definitely compression cycles that a steel or titanium submersible pressure hull go through. In Grand Cayman, Atlantis Submarines used to have a Perry built sub in their fleet and they would take you down to 1000 feet on the Cayman wall. Originally the sub was built for oilfield exploration in the 1970s, but after so many dives they retired it around 2005. The reason was because it had met its compression cycle life and could no longer be certified. Cool though because instead of it going to scrap, a dive shop operator and resort (Ocean Frontiers) bought it as a static display outside of their facility.
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This is like how two different metals expand and contract differently which allows you to make contact-switches, like in automobile turn-signals.