What Crew of Titan Experienced When Submarine Imploded.

A sickening groan echoes through a submarine as it descends into the darkness of the ocean. As the vessel goes deeper and deeper, the pressure against its hull becomes greater and greater. Eventually, the pressure is too much and the steel and titanium hull collapses, consuming anything and anyone inside.

Submarine has some inherent risks, such as running out of air, getting poisoned, and being crushed. However, if you happen to be in a sinking submarine moments before it implodes, your death will be over within a matter of milliseconds. The bad news is that your body will be nothing but a sack of crushed bones and muscles at the bottom of the ocean floor. The good news is that it will only take a few seconds for the submarine to go down.

A sudden pressure shift of approximately 50 psi, equivalent to 3.4 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth, can result in severe harm to the human body. This level of pressure is typically encountered at a depth of 112 feet or 34 meters below water. While this depth may not be considered deep for a submarine, as one descends further into the ocean, the pressure increases to a point where the ribs can crack, lungs can rupture, and death can occur before drowning. It is important to note that the body can only withstand a sudden pressure change of up to 50 psi before being crushed. However, if the pressure change is gradual, the body can tolerate up to 400 psi or 27 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth. The world record for the deepest scuba dive is 1,090 feet or 332 meters. Unfortunately, when a submarine implodes, the pressure change is not gradual.

Prior to delving into the intricate details of death-by-submarine-implosion, it is imperative to comprehend the concept of implosion, how submarines prevent it, and the factors that can lead to this catastrophic event. An implosion is the antithesis of an explosion, whereby a significant amount of force moves inward instead of outward. For instance, when the pressure of air or water outside a container, such as a submarine, is greater than the pressure inside, the difference in pressure results in an inward force around the container. This is because pressures and forces in the physical world strive to achieve equilibrium, necessitating the pressure inside and outside the submarine to be the same. Consequently, the much higher water pressure outside the sub pushes inward as the water naturally seeks to fill the much lower air pressure within the submersible.

To provide a better understanding of the immense pressure deep in the ocean, consider the following scenarios. At sea level, there is 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure pushing against an individual on all sides, also known as 1 atmospheric unit or atm. As one descends deeper underwater, the pressure increases due to the combined weight of the atmosphere and all the water above pushing down on the body. For every foot or meter descended underwater, the weight pushing down increases. At a depth of around 33 feet or 10.06 meters, the amount of water pushing on an individual is comparable to the pressure the atmosphere exerts on the body, resulting in approximately 29.4 psi of pressure pushing inward or 2 atm. This pattern continues every 33 feet or 10 meters down, with the pressure becoming too great for the body to withstand, causing bones to break.

An Ohio-class nuclear submarine has an operational depth of 984 feet or around 300 meters, with the ability to reach 1,640 feet or 500 meters if necessary. At operational depth, the pressure pushing against the hull is 410 psi or 30 times the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level. If the hull were to give under this pressure, 410 pounds or 186 kilograms of water would push inward on every inch of the sub's hull until it imploded, and the 1 atm on the inside of the vessel equalized with the 30 atm on the outside. This would occur instantaneously, crushing everything inside the sub except for dense metals.

However, there are submarines that can descend much deeper than 300 meters below sea level, such as the Titan submersible, which was lost while heading to view the Titanic wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Several submersibles have made this journey, with the first crewed expedition conducted in 1986 aboard the DSV Alvin, which descended to a depth of approximately 12,500 feet or 3,810 meters. At this depth, the pressure pushing inward on the vessel was about 5,600 psi or 381 atm. A sudden catastrophic failure resulting in an implosion at this depth would leave very little but mangled pieces of the hull behind, as was the case with the Titan.

Interestingly, some animals have no difficulty surviving the crushing pressures deep in the ocean, such as most whales that can dive to extraordinary depths where the pressure would pulverize a human and even some submarines. Sperm whales, for instance, descend over 7,000 feet or 2,134 meters below the ocean surface to hunt for giant squid, experiencing over 3,100 psi of pressure or approximately 213 atm before surfacing for another breath of air. Whales can dive to extreme depths due to the flexibility of their bodies, with their ribs surrounded by loose, flexible cartilage that allows the skeleton to safely collapse and expand as needed, preventing the whale's bones from snapping. In contrast, human skeletons cannot withstand anywhere near the amount of pressure a whale's can, limiting us to diving just a few hundred feet under the water.

When the hull of a submarine fails, the water pressure that was previously pushing inward is instantaneously equalized as water fills the space where there had once been air. This can result in the destruction of anything that cannot withstand the massive and instantaneous pressure change, such as a human body. However, before delving into the potential consequences of a submarine implosion, it is important to understand how submarines work and how they are able to withstand the immense pressure of the ocean depths.

At a basic level, all submarines use air and water to control their buoyancy and allow the vessel to rise or sink in the water. When a submersible needs to rise to the surface, the sub's ballast tanks fill with air, reducing the vessel's density and making it more buoyant. This allows the submarine to overcome the force of gravity pulling the ship downward. Conversely, to dive deeper, these ballast tanks are purged of air and filled with water, causing the submarine to become denser and less buoyant, resulting in it sinking. If a submersible's crew wants to remain at a certain depth, the ballast tanks need to be filled with the right proportions of water and air to make the vessel neutrally buoyant, preventing the sub from rising or sinking.

Implosions of submarines have occurred in the past when vessels were damaged and could not feed air into the ballast tanks. This resulted in the submarines descending deeper and deeper until the water pressure became too great, causing the frame to bend or collapse, resulting in an implosion.

However, catastrophic failures are not the only concern aboard a submarine. The only reason that a submarine implodes is that the pressure on the inside of the vessel is significantly lower than the pressure on the outside. This is also what allows the crew of a submarine to survive while inside the hull. If the inside pressure equalized with the pressure outside of the submarine as it descended, an implosion would not be possible because there would be no sudden change in pressure. This is why ships resting deep on the ocean floor maintain their shape and structure, as water floods every compartment, equalizing the pressure inside and outside of the ship.

To maintain a much lower pressure inside the submersible than outside, submarines have complex systems to allow the occupants on board to breathe and not be crushed. The air mixture inside a submarine is a combination of several gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide. Oxygen needs to be constantly replenished to prevent suffocation, and carbon dioxide must be removed to prevent poisoning. In smaller vessels, the air mixture might be self-contained with a limited supply, while larger vessels may use processes such as electrolysis to separate water molecules into their independent components.

In summary, while the potential consequences of a submarine implosion are severe, it is important to understand the complex systems that allow submarines to function and keep their occupants safe while exploring the depths of the ocean.

parts of oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen produced through this method can be circulated throughout the vessel for the crew to breathe, allowing these types of vessels to remain submerged indefinitely, with the only limitation being the amount of food it can hold to sustain the crew. To remove carbon dioxide from the air, scrubbers containing soda lime, composed of sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide, are utilized. The soda lime effectively traps carbon dioxide and removes it from the air. However, malfunctions in these systems can result in a dangerous mixture of gases that are not safe to breathe, such as high levels of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, which can cause crew members to pass out and eventually die. Additionally, the cold temperatures of the ocean pose a threat to submarine crews, as the heat from within the vessel is lost through the hull into the frigid waters surrounding it, requiring electric heaters to be constantly running to keep the crew alive. However, these cold temperatures can also lead to deadly problems and result in a catastrophic implosion.

The complex systems within a submarine mean that any number of things could go wrong, and there are many ways to die deep under the waters of the ocean. Implosion, however, would occur in milliseconds, crushing crew members to death before their brains could even register that something was wrong. Although death by submarine implosion would be a horrible way to go, it would be somewhat merciful as there would be no suffering.

Several submarines have imploded in the past, resulting in the tragic loss of all crew members on board. The U.S.S. Thresher, a nuclear-powered Permit Class submarine, suffered a gruesome fate in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean in 1963, while the Argentine Naval vessel ARA San Juan and the Titan submersible also experienced catastrophic implosions.

It is theorized that the catastrophic failure that caused the Titan to implode was the result of an experimental hull made up mostly of carbon fibers, which likely had a flaw that caused the hull to crack or collapse under extreme pressure. Like all submarine implosions, the Titan catastrophe was instantaneous, resulting in the instant crushing of all crew members on board.

While all human constructs are bound to have flaws, the sudden and painless nature of death by implosion leaves little for loved ones to mourn over after the fact.