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Am I missing something about the Titan sub?

He used a carbon fibre pressure vessel. Carbon fibre is a material that’s good in tension. Is has no strength in compression at all: it’s just woven cloth.

It works as an aircraft pressure vessel because the pressure inside is higher than the pressure outside, hence the carbon fibre works as a balloon and is in tension.

But for a submersible, the pressure outside is higher. The pressure vessel is getting compressed.

So the carbon fibre will give it a bit of stiffness, but the actual crush resistance is being provided by the epoxy resin that holds the carbon fibre weave together.

Am I missing something? Why the hell did they build a compression pressure vessel out of string glued together? It doesn’t matter how strong the string is: it will still fold up if you scrunch it into a ball. The structural strength came not from the string, but from the glue.

I’m amazed it took as long to fail as it did. I must be missing something here, right?

Why, for the love of all that’s holy, did they use carbon fibre?