Comment by ciguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ciguy | Hacker News Reader

This section from their website is interesting:

"Real-Time Health Monitoring The most significant innovation is the proprietary real-time hull health monitoring (RTM) system. Titan is the only manned submersible to employ an integrated real-time health monitoring system. Utilizing co-located acoustic sensors and strain gauges throughout the pressure boundary, the RTM system makes it possible to analyze the effects of changing pressure on the vessel as the submersible dives deeper, and accurately assess the integrity of the structure. This onboard health analysis monitoring system provides early warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface."

I am surprised that real time monitoring of the hull is even a consideration, I would have expected it to be designed an built with massive safety margins and then inspected very thoroughly after each trip. The above paragraph seems to indicate that they would monitor hull health during the trip and stop descent if it showed signs of stress. But I am skeptical that they would see signs of stress before it simply imploded at depth.

> "No other submersible currently utilizes real-time monitoring to monitor hull health during a dive. We want to know why. Classed subs are only required to undergo depth validation every three years, whereas our RTM system validates the integrity of the hull on each and every dive." [1]

I suspect your intuition may be why RTM is not really used. Failures happen too quickly for them to give useful preventative data, perhaps?

[1] https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-tita...

Aviation cross-country flight training maxim: 'If you don't know where you are, you're lost."

Manned Underwater Submersible maxim: "If you must constantly check your hull integrity, your hull isn't safe."

It tells you when your crew and passengers are dead. There is not going to be any lag between 'RTM system says there is a problem' to 'sub lost'.

It sounds a lot like marketing jargon to my ears. Not just the ridiculous name but the vague description- and obvious fact that even if it works it certainly isn’t bailing you out at depths where the craft is most likely to fsil.

I’m surprised those who paid to ride were not more atuned to this.

I don’t want to pick on Honda here, as a long time owner, but the name itself keeps reminding me of “Super Handling All wheel Drive” (SH-AWD)

My thoughts exactly. They should be doing a deep inspection of the hull before and after every dive. RTM sounds good until you have a failure at 10000 ft down and die instantly. “We detected a failu -“ and then you go boom.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com