Titan sub: crew have died after catastrophic loss of pressure chamber, US Coast Guard confirms

i_am_hungry@meganice.online to World News@beehaw.org – 123 points –
Titan sub: crew have died after catastrophic loss of pressure chamber, US Coast Guard confirms – latest updates
theguardian.com
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"catastrophic loss of pressure"?

Wouldn't it be a catastrophic increase of pressure? They were at the bottom of the ocean.

No, it's catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber, the thing that keeps the squishy humans inside separate from the tons-per-square-inch of water outside.

Nope. The air pressure on the inside of a submarine is close to ~1 bar = ~1 atmosphere.

Yes, that's correct. The pressure chamber is the hull that separates the 1 atm of pressure inside from the 375 atm of water outside. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Turns out I'm to drunk to read. Sorry, I misread the headline. Man, I hate english writing words separately...

No worries, had a feeling it was something like that. It also doesn't help that there's a line break between "pressure" and "chamber" (at least on my screen), so it's an easy mistake to make.

Look at this interaction, just look at it. Everyone playing nice, nothing toxic in sight. If this were Reddit we'd have started a flamewar.

I freaking love Beehaw, stay classy Beeple.

Same line break on my screen. Thanks, that's one more thing to blame.

You need high internal pressure to not implode, I guess that's what they mean

No? It's the hull of the vessel that counters the outside pressure. The main reason to use a submarine, instead of scuba diving, is to shield yourself from the pressure. If the inside pressure was even close the the outside, which it would have to be to keep it from imploding, you wouldn't need the submarine at all; you'd be crushed regardless.

At the depth of the Titanic, roughly 4000 m, the water pressure is ~400 bar. The record for highest survived air pressure is around 70 bar. That was for 2 hours, breathing a special gas mixture of 99,5% hydrogen and 0,5% oxygen.

I find it highly unlikely that they'd rely on the inside air pressure for anything other than the comfort of the passengers.

The hull needs to have high pressure internally, which adds to the strength of a vehicle like this.

But hey I'm just extrapolating from the words used- Loss of pressure.

Yes? I want to agree, it's an increase of pressure from the surrounding waters.