ETIA - FRP (Carbon Fibre) Course 24 July 2023

ETIA - FRP (Carbon Fibre) Zoom Course - 24 July 2023

It was very sad to hear of the 5 lives lost on the Titan Oceangate submersible recently. I remember as a child in the 1960’s watching the 1953 American movie ‘Titanic’ and its 1958 British equivalent “A night to remember” and being mesmerised by the story and loss of this incredible vessel in 1912 and the 1500 souls aboard. In 1997 I was again captivated by the James Cameron movie version of Titanic. Suffice to say that there have been many versions and stories of the Titanic sinking that everyone would be aware of the dangers of putting lives at risk to satisfy unsafe deadlines imposed by others.

In January 1986 I remember seeing the loss of the Challenger Space Shuttle and the seven astronauts on board. What caught my attention at the time was a comment from management to the Morton Thiokol engineers involved with the project. Engineers warned management that cold weather conditions were degrading the O-Ring seals on the solid rocket boosters and thus advised the launch be delayed, they were told “Take off your engineer hat and put your management hat on”. Another manager told the engineers “When do you want me to launch .. next April !”

Unfortunately the lessons of 1912 and 1986 were not learnt when the Titan Oceangate submersible sank recently. The parallels between the 1912 event and that of the 2023 event are uncanny. Captain Edward Smith of the 1912 vessel was pressured to increase the speed of his vessel through iceberg riddled waters to make a deadline in New York. The co-founder of the Titan Oceangate, Stockton Rush was reported to have pressured his colleagues to take unnecessary steps to have the submersible ready for the dive for himself and 4 other paying customers (costing ? million USD dollars each) to view the wreck of the Titanic which was laying 12500 feet (3800 m … just shy of 4 km) below the ocean. “Independent and Certified” research and testing of his seawater submersible at such depths were apparently never carried out.

Former OceanGate pilot, David Lochridge, who was hired to run manned tests of submersibles, claimed in court papers that he was fired after he warned that the Titan’s carbon shell was not properly tested to ensure it could descend safely to 4,000 metres. In the court papers, it was revealed that Lochridge complained in 2018 that OceanGate would be ‘endangering customers’. Following this comment, he was given “10 minutes to immediately clear out his desk.”

Water weighs 1000 kg/m3 and thus any object under the ocean experiences a water pressure of 9.81 kPa per metre depth (ie approx. 10 kN per m2 or 10 men weighing 100 kg each and standing on an area 1m x 1m). When you extrapolate that to the depth the Titan submersible needed to reach in order to view the Titanic (ie 3800 m), then the pressure on the skin of the vessel would have been close to 40 MPa (ie 4000 tonnes per m2).

The submersible hull was made using carbon fibre and titanium (as opposed to standard materials used in such applications eg high strength steel, or special grade aluminium). Carbon fibre is excellent in tension (with strengths much higher than steel for less weight) however this type of fibre is not that good in shear or compression, compared to say steel. Forces on the Titan submersible put it into compression, tension and shear, however the number of times (or cycles) that such a vessel could tolerate before the capacity is reduced was unknown. Reports indicate that it had dived a few times earlier before the unit finally imploded. Whilst steel and aluminium have years of testing providing detailed fatigue information, the same cannot be said for carbon fibre materials. Reports indicate that it was only certified to go to depths of 1300 m (approx. 1/3 of the depth required to view the Titanic).

At ETIA we conduct many courses on these materials eg Steel, Aluminium, Carbon Fibre etc. In particular we conduct a course on FRP (Fibre Reinforced Polymers) such as Carbon Fibre, Glass Fibre and other types of fibres.

We will be conducting an FRP (carbon fibre) course on 24 July 2023 which will address the properties of the various types of fibre in the marketplace (including the effects of tension, compression, shear as well as fire and its effects on the epoxies to glue the fibres together), the testing that has been carried out, the Standards that apply to fibre design as well as the more common uses of carbon fibre in structural engineering applications (eg bridge beam repair, carpark and garage slab retrofitting etc). The course will be presented by Dr Robin Kalfat from Swinburne University on behalf of ETIA. Dr Kalfat has vast experience in both testing and practical applications of carbon fibres in Australia and around the World.

For further information go to our website www.etia.net.au or use the link https://www.etia.net.au/event/frp-structural-design-workshop-zoom