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Comment Re:Where is the specific problem? (Score 1) 100

Nothing else needs to be said.

What a desperate and pathetic rhetorical fail. No, you can not shut us up by falsely asserting that "Nothing else needs to be said."

Someone leaked internal Nature deliberations, demonstrating that the peer review process was corrupted by climate activists. Three out of four reviewers recommended publishing the addendum. Instead, Nature refused to publish it and retracted the original article.

The problem was clearly stated.

The problem was falsely stated.

Comment business as usual (Score 0, Troll) 100

"Concerns were raised regarding... the resulting conclusions of the article"

Of course concerns were raised. Any scientific reasoning inconsistent with fossil fuel profiteering must be cancelled.

Those pesky facts were getting in the way of the green agenda to save the world from carbon dioxide emissions by shutting down nuclear, so the article was retracted.

Germany powers its economy by tearing up the earth to mine highly polluting coal and by destroying thousands or acres of woodlands annually to fuel their forest-burning power plants. Building out expensive, weak and intermittent sources like wind and solar while relying on fossil fuels to power the economy is the green agenda.

Who funded the green lobby in Europe to shut down nuclear? Russia, because blocking nuclear created a market in Europe for Russian gas.

Europe did a 180 on nuclear buildout immediately after Russian funding of green European political operatives was halted with the advent their idiotic Ukraine war.

Coal kills. Support the environment by ending the green movement.

Thorium molten salt is the future. It's not only Copenhagen Atomics. Several experimental molten salt reactors will be firing up within the next few years. China just certified theirs for initial trials.

   

Comment because general anesthesia (Score 1) 26

See:
Lasting effects of general anesthetics on the brain in the young and elderly: “mixed picture” of neurotoxicity, neuroprotection and cognitive impairment

from Conclusions (emphasis added):

The developing and aging brain may be vulnerable to anesthesia. An important mechanism for anesthesia-induced developmental neurotoxicity is widespread neuroapoptosis, whereby an early exposure to anesthesia causes long-lasting impairments in neuronal communication and faulty formation of neuronal circuitries. Exposure to anesthesia to the aged brain can be a risk of the long-lasting impairments of cognitive function.

Comment Re:billionaires should avoid bargains (Score 2) 417

I see how Carbon fiber has fantastic modulus and tensile strength, but I'm not sure about its compressive strength

For days the use of carbon fiber in that application has seemed nonsensical to me for that very reason. But now, after further consideration, it must be that the carbon fiber composite tube was mechanically coupled to the rigid titanium end caps. In that case, negative and positive internal pressures place equal tensile loads on the fiber.

That raises hard questions about how to design the mechanical coupling between the tube and end caps because that joint must withstand the same tensile load as the carbon fiber itself.

Nullius in verba

The submersible passengers would have done well to follow your Slashdot signature advice.

Comment Re:tension vs compression (Score 1) 192

Also:

For a carbon fiber composite vessel pressurized from the inside, such as high-pressure hydrogen tank, the resin component bonding the fiber transfers force from interior pressure as tension to the fiber, which is extremely strong under under tension.

For a carbon fiber composite vessel pressurized by the outside, such as the submersible, the fiber transfers and distributes compressive force across the resin, which is comparatively poor at resisting crushing force.

       

Comment tension vs compression (Score 4, Interesting) 192

Something puzzling is that I keep reading that the sub was made from a carbon fiber tube with titanium end caps.

"Carbon fiber" means a plastic resin with carbon fiber embedded. For weight that material is extremely strong under tension, such as when pressurizing the inside of an airplane hull or under the lift force on a helicopter rotor blade. But compression? Why would a carbon fiber composite be any stronger under compression than is the plastic resin in which the carbon fiber is embedded?

Imagine trying to deform a cable by pulling on it; That would take tremendous strength. Now imagine trying to deform a cable by pushing on it; that would require minuscule force. Are carbon fibers in the submersible hull pushed together by compression of the hull, not pulled by tension?

Well, both, it depends on the direction of force and the orientation of the fiber. A radial compressive point load on a cylinder, under which the circumferential fibers are under compression, is also an axial load, under which the longitudinal fibers are under tension. However, depending on the combinations of fiber orientations, a carbon fiber cylinder could demonstrate compressive deformations along axes in which no fibers are under tension. For example, with only those two combinations of fiber orientations, a carbon fiber cylinder would buckle under force applied inward, perpendicular to a line from its base to top. Now, a carbon fiber cylinder should also have cross-oriented fibers to resist that particular force under tension. But was load analysis performed with the understanding that ONLY the cross-oriented fibers would resist longitudinal buckling under compression?

Maybe what happened is that the sub designer thought to himself, "Carbon fiber is very strong, I'll use that" and it was rated for some load that exceed pressure at depth. But there was no mechanical analysis or testing of compressive deformation that would have caught the difference between evaluating compression and tension.

On the other hand, the failure could be anything, the entire effort sounds like ad-hoc, off-the-shelf, lets-try-it-and-see-if-it-works methodology. Which is all fine and awesome because it's cheap and fast and effective. Build early, test often. You just do not put people in it.

Comment Re:carbon fiber hull (Score 1) 152

I would not trust my life to an innovative composite structure, unproven in a new design and application, subject to repeated use. Especially with maintenance and inspection procedures almost certainly derived from theoretical limits and not from experience and extensive destructive testing at scale.

Boy, do I have bad news for you about the materials used to construct modern passenger aircraft.

Au contraire, carbon fiber has been used in aircraft for about half a century and extensively in recent decades. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is about 50% carbon fiber by weight and as of last November 865 were in service. Point is, the number of aircraft with carbon fiber components is many and total flight hours is ginormous. The FAA mandates thorough testing and review of new designs and requires routine inspection by validated and certified processes.

Compared to that sub, which appears to be a one-off, not subject to design reviews or testing and inspection requirements, and operating in entirely different conditions than an airframe. It is subject to compressive, not tensile loads. There is risk of undetected salt water infiltration. A titanium enclosed hull surrounding a carbon fiber frame presents issues with differential rates of expansion. While small cracks in airframes are routinely identified and repaired during overhauls, a small crack in that sub hull would be immediately fatal.

Like most of the public, you seem to believe that engineering decisions were a matter of assigning an emotional valence to particular materials; this material is "good" and that one "bad". As opposed to determining operating limits and longevity of materials for particular applications in particular designs, by methods of rigorous testing, inspection and use over extended periods.

So yes, what you say, except the opposite.

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