I saw an interview with James Cameron and Robert Ballard. James eluded to the fact that the carbon wound sub design would never work at those depths and Stockton was warned of this? It just seems weird that a billionaire and his son were willing guinea pigs.
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From the get-go, it was truly the wrong material to be used for a submarine. The submarine's flexibility is limited by a finite number of cycles of contraction-expansion. This is especially true for deep water submarines. The graphite laminate construction of the Titan sends my head spinning with all the variables for something going wrong. The repeat contraction-expansion factor really stands out to me.
There's a reason why titanium and special alloys of steel are chosen as the material of choice for heavy submarine manufacturing. Russia heavy submarines are built with a double hull structure.