They wouldn't transfer anyone. The second submersible might be able to attach a cable to the top of the first submersible that was stuck on the ocean floor. Then the first submersible could be pulled up to the surface.
Pretty good answer but I think the Titan weighs about 20,000 pounds. Do you think the 2nd submersible could lift it to the surface?
Seeing as they've already brought up a 15 ton piece of the Titanic's hull to the surface I'd wager they could handle bringing up a 10 ton hunk of submarine.
I think the question is more like how do china plates handle that much pressure, even from all sides. Probably because they break from fragility, not being crushed.
But it would be interesting to see them measured, maybe they are squished a bit way down there.
They probably had some basketballs aboard that were popped. But what about lacrosse balls? What would happen to a golf ball?
Solid materials would compress according to their “bulk modulus.” Materials with a high bulk modulus would decrease in volume a small amount, and materials with a low bulk modulus would change in volume a lot.
Well then, let's find out! Someone with a submersible (a good one) should go down and measure these things. Using instruments that won't be miscalibrated by the pressure.
Then they can bring the dishes up and measure them again.
To finance it, they can then auction off the "Titanic China" for rich people to eat off of. They'll pay millions, billions.
Solid materials would compress according to their “bulk modulus.” Materials with a high bulk modulus would decrease in volume a small amount, and materials with a low bulk modulus would change in volume a lot.
Well then, let's find out! Someone with a submersible (a good one) should go down and measure these things. Using instruments that won't be miscalibrated by the pressure.
Then they can bring the dishes up and measure them again.
To finance it, they can then auction off the "Titanic China" for rich people to eat off of. They'll pay millions, billions.
It would be an elastic compression though. So it would be normal sized before submersion, smaller at the bottom, and then return normal size again when it’s retrieved. Maybe those rich people will still buy it though!
That’s how it would go until the pressure got so high the thing failed in pure compression. For China dishes it looks like that would at around 1,000 times atmospheric pressure.
And any mechanical engineer would tell you this is where a ton of issues begin - when you start joining/combining materials next to each other when they have different Young's modulus/physical properties etc. If you were to weld a 2ft aluminum bar to a 2ft carbon steel bar to form a 4 feet long bar and then flex it, the ways that both materials resist that flexion amplifies stress at the join. Even in a mechanical join (like riveting/any other form of bonding - heck even doing a friction weld or casting) the weak point is the join. It appears like this craft had a titanium "nose" that was connected to a carbon fiber hull. It doesn't even matter if both materials on their own were rated to handle the 6000 PSI pressure down there, the fact they would handle that pressure differently creates the opportunity for massive failure.
Especially with respect to carbon fiber - what's really difficult to know is when potential failure points start propagating - even when you x-ray it (the only way to see internal faults in CF). For something that goes under pressure to that insane degree, it doesn't really matter how many layers you use - it will gradually start failing and the pressure just amplifies that. A Carbon fiber bike doesn't last forever for this reason - it also doesn't undergo 6000PSI. I would hypothesize this is why it could make a handful of trips without technically "failing" - but the stress on key points of the hull/construction was causing rapid degradation with no way of assessing that. The last trip was one time too many.
Another potential issue with a bond between titanium (or any metal) and carbon fiber is the different coefficients of thermal expansion. Carbon fiber often has a negative coefficient (gets smaller when heated, grows when cooled) whereas titanium is like any typical metal and has a positive coefficient. The bottom of the ocean at 12,000 feet deep isn’t that cold (33 degrees F per Google) but, if unaccounted for, that additional stress could lead to a failure.
Plates don't have trapped air pockets and probably degas as they float to the bottom. As a thought experiment, the vessel is basically at full vacuum, but with an external pressure a little under 400 times more powerful than Earth's atmosphere. Have you ever tried to pull a suction cup that is stubborn? That is almost literally nothing compared to the pressure differential at the bottom of the ocean. If you can imagine pulling as hard as you can, the suction cup comes loose, and you fly across the room a little bit when it gives. If Earth's sea level atmosphere was magically 375 (instead of ~15), you pulled full vacuum on a structurally sound and sealed suction cup, and then managed to rip it in tact off a structurally sufficient and inelastic wall and using your body which was also magically inelastic... You would fly across the room, through the wall, and across town. That plate at the bottom of the ocean? That's like putting a piece of loose paper against the wall and pulling it off or just letting it fall down... There are no structural air pockets to create a vacuum.
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