On June 18, a deep submersible, the Titan, lost contact with its support surface vessel Polar Prince at 11:47 a.m. approximately 1 1/2 hours after beginning its descent. The loss of contact likely indicated the catastrophic implosion of the submersible at approximately 4 km. depth. A prolonged search over five days supplied robotic visual confirmation of the imploded submersible.
What happened?
The event brought extensive press coverage across the globe. The accuracy of reports are widely mixed, and some of the misinformation given may have been deliberate. We are asked to trust the press.
The Drama
The press reported the opinions of a movie director who made a blockbuster drama revolving around the account of a woman who survived the sinking of the Titanic. He went on to take an amateur interest in the ship.
The accounts of actual experts in the field of constructing and evaluating deep submersibles was largely unreported. I suspect they wished to keep to themselves, as the press is no friend of science and technology.
The press reported extensively the musings of the movie director of all matters regarding deep submersibles. The Titan was constructed as a ready transport-for-hire to be used by fabulously wealthy dilettantes who wished to see the world’s marvels close up.
Physics
Humans cannot be trusted to give a well-founded and dispassionate account of what happened. Physics, however, can provide a straightforward narrative without the mystery of sources and methods.
Facts of the Matter.
Energy. The calculation of the energy of implosions is straightforward. When an empty void is opened to gas or liquid under pressure, the material floods in to fill the void. The potential energy held at bay by the walls around the void is released when the wall is compromised.
Pressure. The pressure at the operating depth at which the implosion occurred was at 375 times atmospheric pressure. The pressure at depth is linearly proportionate to the depth. In metric terms, this is 38 megapascals.
Volume. The volume of the pressure chamber of the submersible is not readly obtained, but can be estimated. If one needs to transport the corpse of a deceased person, they can readily fit in 1.5 - 2 cubic meters. This would be an intolerable volume for a living person to be enclosed in. At absolute minimum, over 10 hours, 3 cubic meters - a double-wide coffin for confinement, 4 cubic meters per person would allow minimum comfort. For five people, say 20 cubic meters inside the pressure vessel.
Calculations.
The potential energy of a habitable pressure vessel at the depth indicated is 756 megajoules. That’s the electrical power use of a small town for an hour. During an implosion, it is all released in far under a second. The energy released is the equivalent of 100 lbs of TNT, within a comparable rate of time that TNT detonation occurs.
Conclusions.
At the time of implosion, a fairly loud ‘bang’ would be audible to hydrophones on the surface vessel several seconds after the implosion when the sound traveled from the depth to the surface. As hydrophones were used to communicate with the vessel, the hydrophones should have immediately been wrecked when they received the sound of the implosion, due to the amount of energy released.
Who’s not telling the truth?
The US Navy?
Perhaps telling the truth. The underwater Navy sound detectors are highly classified as to their sensitivity. However, their ability to locate a detected sound would be very precise, far more than just hearing a ‘bang’ out in the ocean. At the right level of noise, the origin could be quite precisely pinpointed.
Another classified detail would be how sensitive the detectors are. Could they hear an implosion the equivalent of 100 pounds of TNT? Large noise detection would be centered on military submarine implosions and weapons explosions, which might have a detection limit above the threshold of the Titan implosion. But they’re probably not going to tell.
The Polar Prince?
They must have known within seconds that since their loss of contact with the Titan, followed by a loud implosion noise several seconds later, that the Titan had imploded.
Why Five Days of Drama?
There’s the rub. Did the operators just wish to conceal the whole event as a navigation loss? Did the press pick up the story knowing that the whole matter was evident from the begining? That’s the mystery. The physics shows that the operators knew immediately that the Titan was lost to a catastrophic implosion, I would suggest.