LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – When the Titanic sank more than a century ago, Michigan remembers those who never made it back to the Pleasant Peninsula.
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Of the 2,200 passengers aboard the luxury cruise ship, nearly 70 were bound for Michigan, including families, farmers, miners, and newlyweds. The story of the tragic ship’s ending still inspires many to study the sunken ship from afar and even attempt to view it first hand and up close.
The recent tragedy of the exploratory effort to visit the ship via the OceanGate TITAN submersible hearkens back to the many who lost their lives aboard the “Unsinkable” Titanic vessel, though the five men onboard the submersible had a much swifter death, it offers small consolation to their families.
“This was a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District.
After nearly a week of searching, the Coast Guard and other search entities called off efforts as evidence of debris was found near the wreckage of the Titanic.
As scientists have tried to piece together what went wrong nearly two miles under the sea, some have endeavored to by simulation.
Ronald Wagner, a PhD in Engineering, considered an expert in the buckling of thin-walled shell structures, help create a simulation of what likely occured when the submersible imploded.
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According to his simulation, at 33 milliseconds, the middle of the cylindrical sub had collapsed to roughly half of its normal diameter, though the sub still appears intact. However, at 34 milliseconds, the middle seems pinched small enough to likely crush anyone in the middle of the sub, and also shows signs of breakage in the craft.
The researcher concluded that at the estimated depth of 3,000 meters, it took all but less than 13 milliseconds from the beginning of the implosion to the end for there to be nothing left of the craft save the end caps.
Many contend that the carbon fiber hull, unlike many other submersibles made of metal, had been fatigued the some 50 previous dives which could have contributed to the breakage.
By elongating the cabin space, the pressure loads to the midsections increases, raising the fatigue on the vessel according to Jasper Graham-Jones, an associate professor of mechanical and marine engineering at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.
Each trip would put tiny cracks in the structure he said.
“This might be small and undetectable to start but would soon become critical and produce rapid and uncontrollable growth,” Graham-Jones added.
At the end of June, the Coast Guard received debris and other recovered evidence from the site of the TITAN submersible, and announced plans to analyze it further.
“The evidence will provide investigators from several international jurisdictions with critical insights into the cause of this tragedy,” Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) Chair, and Captain Jason Neubauer said, “There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the TITAN and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.”
