Simulation reveals what Titan sub implosion ‘looked like by the millisecond’

There have been many theories about the demise of the doomed Titan sub since its catastrophic implosion.

All five men on board were killed when the OceanGate vessel succumbed in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean while on a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck.

They included the operator’s CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, 58, ‘Mr Titanic’ Paul-Henri Nargeolet, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

Submarine expert José Luis Martín claims the passengers would have been aware of their impending fate for around one minute before they died. 

He said the change in pressure would have led to the sub freefalling around 3,000ft for up to 71 seconds before ‘the implosion and instantaneous sudden death’.

Numerous other haunting animations and videos have also gone viral on social media attempting to explain and outline what would have happened. 

But now new expert analysis has emerged with in-depth simulations showing the exact time frames of Titan’s implosion in millisecond intervals – and what it would have looked like.

Dr Ronald Wagner, who has a PhD in engineering and is an expert in the buckling of thin-walled shell structures, used software to explain how the sub ‘failed’ with a ‘collapse of the cylindrical hull’.

Using frame-by-frame clips, he is able to show the truly devastating reality of what happened – and just how fast it happened.

Describing the findings of the simulation, Dr Wagner said: ‘The steps are in milliseconds. Your brain needs 13 milliseconds to process information from your eye. 

‘That means that you need 13 milliseconds in order to get an image. But as you can see here, if we go forward 13 milliseconds, you would already be dead 10 milliseconds ago. 

‘It happens so fast and in order to process pain, it’s 100 milliseconds, so they wouldn’t really have felt anything or saw anything coming. They would just be instantly dead.’

Before the implosion, it’s expected that loud creaks and pops would have been heard from inside the sub before the hull collapsed. 

Monitoring systems and sensors on the hull would have also been hooked up to alarms, which would have gone off to indicate a failure, according to engineering.com.

Here is a look at Dr Wagner’s analysis of the Titan sub implosion and the step-by-step simulation from the moment it started to collapse, to the point it became just small pieces of debris.

0 milliseconds: Titan’s carbon fibre hull first starts to collapse

The simulation shows that the submersible’s carbon fibre hull is showing its first sign of damage and begins to collapse inwards.

2.182 milliseconds: Titan’s hull collapses to half its diameter

The middle of the cylinder collapses to around half its diameter, but the submersible appears to still be intact.

3.274 milliseconds: Anyone sat in middle of Titan would be crushed

The cylinder is pinched small enough to have crushed anyone seated in the middle of the vessel.

By this point, the hull begins to break up. The fibres on the inside of the vessel could be stretched, but the fibres on the outside have crumpled. The material would have broken off with enough energy.

4.365 milliseconds: The hull of Titan completely gives way

The simulation shows that the middle of the sub has caved in and separated at the centre. 

It disproves the theory that the extreme external pressure would have fused the hull into one singular piece – with the titanium domes still intact. 

Engineering.com says in its report: ‘Separation of the hull and the rush of water combined with fragments of composite material would have a horrible pulverising effect on any animal tissue, even bone. Nobody could possibly be left intact.’

At this point in the simulation, it is still less than five milliseconds from when the sub started to collapse – that’s at least eight milliseconds faster than the brain can compute what is happening visually. 

7.638 milliseconds: Titan’s carbon fibre hull is obliterated

Fragments of the titanium ring and hull are thrust into the end caps.

Engineering.com says that if there was ‘any hope of finding human remains preserved by the integrity of the end caps, this simulation proves otherwise’.

13.495 milliseconds: Titan’s debris scatters around the ocean

By the point at which the human brain would even begin to have been able to process visual information, debris is scattering around what was once the submersible. 

The carbon fibre hull has been completely broken up into dozens and dozens of pieces of debris, ranging in size.

The titanium shells still remain but are now closer together, likely due to pressure still being applied to the end caps.. 

What does the simulation show?

Within 14 milliseconds, the entire hull of the Titan sub has gone from being fully intact to complete disintegration.

According to engineering.com, the analysis confirms that the carbon fibre hull would have ‘broken into small pieces’.

They say it also helps to explain why, although larger pieces of debris have all been recovered, such as the end cap, fairing, power and propulsion system and legs, ‘no part of the carbon fibre hull has been found’.

At the weekend, James Cameron strongly denied rumours that he was wanted to make a drama series based on Titan submarine tragedy.

Earlier this month, OceanGate Expeditions suspended ‘all exploration and commercial operations’.

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