Dear Reader,

Good day to you! The early part of this newsletter might have a sombre tone but I wanted to pay tribute to the inventive and exploratory spirit behind the OceanGate's Titan submarine. Here are the contents for this newsletter:

1. Technical Reflections: A dirge to the OceanGate's Titan Sub and lessons learned
2. Behind the Scenes at CM Videos: Video about AI and Computational Modelling
3. Celebrating CM Videos Insider: Ms Xia Heping

Without much ado, lets get into the contents of the newsletter

Technical Reflections

Lament to the OceanGate's Titan Sub

My Personal Reflections

I wanted to write this dirge to the OceanGate's Titan sub to offer my tribute to this ambitious submarine which if properly crafted, could have become comparable to SpaceX's and Virgin Galactica's vision of taking men regularly to the outer boundaries of space just like a typical commercial flight. Only this time, the boundaries of exploration is the dark recesses of the deepest seas. The SpaceX and Virgin Galactica's inventors have been extremely successful but for OceanGate's Titan sub, we are sadly reflecting on the lessons worth learning concerning the catastrophic end of the sub.

I know many have written about the reasons why Titan suffered the suspected implosion as it embarked on that mission to the scene of the Titanic on the ocean floor. I will not be rehearsing them but together with that dirge, here are lessons worth learning by every engineer.

1. Inventions cannot stand alone from certifications: Inventors invent and often get carried away by their inventions because they are literarily bringing into existence something that never existed. It is equivalent to having a baby - one day you were without one, and the next day, you have this awesome bundle of joy. You become paternally and maternally attached to this joy and it begins to shape your every decision. Inventing a product is akin to that. Yet you must always subscribe to verifications and certifications. There are reasons why those are there and it is your duty to find them, ensure you follow them. The inventor is an addicted optimist but the certification agency are true pessimist who modulate the enthusiasm of the inventor thereby leading to a product that is safe for many to use. So, the lesson here is that you have to briddle your inventive enthusiasm with the specifics of certification for your product.
2. Heed the warnings: It seemed there were a lot of red flags raised by both professionals and enthusiasts which were not heeded by the inventor of the OceanGate Titan sub. As well as being circumspect with your designs, you must also heed warnings that others bring to your attention. It might seem these warnings are flimsy negatives and set to deter your visionary spirit, but it is wise to heed such warnings. It is said that 'fools tread where angels fear." There is a reason to tread carefully where others seem to be expressing genuine fear of danger!
3. Make the risks clear for all to see: I often wonder if the passengers in the sub knew what grave danger they were walking into. In retrospect, it is easy to see what a risky vessel the Titan was but imagine the crew members - what must they have been thinking. This is why the lesson is to submit ones design to certification tests and seek that out at all means, even if there is not specific certification for your design. Part of this is identifying what risks they are with your design and making it clear for all to see. We teach our students to do a risk assessment for every project because only in that will people be reliably informed of what dangers one face when using the new product. I was not involved with the Titan team so unsure what risks they were aware of ahead of the crew.

Of course there are other lessons around choice of carbon fibre material for the hull of the sub, controlling the sub-marine with a game controller, zip tiles for holding parts of the sub and use of flammable material for the floor of the sub. There are also issues of sacking a former employer for voicing their concerns about the development of the submarine and so on and so forth. Until the forensic report comes out, we can only keep speculating on what really happened.

One thing is certain, an invention has gone wrong with disastrous consequences. We mourn for the loss of human lives and also the loss of the Titan sub. For us, we have to find the lessons and learn then, and ensure that this does not happen again, because it does give science and invention a bad name.

Behind the Scenes at CM Videos

Video about AI and Computational Modelling

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I wrote last week about the impact of AI on Computational modelling. Within the week, I filmed and published the above YouTube video on the same issues. I also published a newsletter about this topic on my LinkedIn Effective Solutions newsletter which you can access via this link. If you are yet to see the video, then do follow the link about it.

Celebrate a CM Videos Insider

Ms Xia Hepping, PhD Student, City University of Hong Kong

I will like to introduce to the CM Vidoes Insiders community Ms Xia Heping who is a second year PhD student at City Universty of Hong Kong.

She is working in the area of design of bio-inspired natural composites using theoretical modelling and FEA simulation. In particular, she is working with nacre-inspired composites which is based on a nacres materials. This type of composite finds applictions as: engineering materials, electric cables, fire-retardant materials, supercapacitors, nanogenerators and gas-barier materials.

If you want to read a review article about this type of composite, then visit the link below:

​Nacre-inspired commposites with different macroscopic dimensions: strategies for improved mechanical performance and applications. ​

Xia is working on a paper that she will be publishing soon about her work. Also, we should look out for this upcoming journal paper which is about the micromodeling of bioinspried nanocomposites to analyze the role of interface between hard material and soft material. In the nearest future, Xia hopes to undertake research about combining the IGA (isogeometric analysis) with FEA.

Finally, here is a quote from Xia of the impact of the CM Videos YouTube channel and this newsletter on her career so far. I was very touched by them and I can only say thank you Xia.

If you want me to feature you in any of my future Celebration of CM Videos Insiders, then fill this form:

Thanks everyone for reading this far. Congratulations again Xia on the journey so far in computational modelling. I will catch up with you next week. In the mean time, do have a wonderful weekend.

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