Yes, and that is just ONE FATAL FLAW.
The Front Titanium Dome with window (OK, porthole) was GLUED onto the Carbon Fiber ‘tube’. The tube itself was 5 inches thick.
Glue a metal dome to a carbon fiber hull? That right there was a disaster waiting to happen.
You have three things with different coefficients of expansion and tensile strengths, Titanium, Carbon Fiber and whatever adhesive they used (SUPERGLUE?).
Had there been a metal sleeve inside the tube might have made a difference, or just prolonged or delayed the inevitable..............
There was, but by itself it wasn't strong enough, hence the carbon fiber.
Yes, the pressure hull was a carbon fiber “laminate” tube.
I may be wrong but I don’t believe carbon fiber is often used in compression and most often is used in tension.
Also the greatest weakness in a laminate is the de-lamination.
In a 5 inch laminate the start of de-lamination could be very hard to detect if it began deep in the laminate.
Repeated compression of the hull would cause any defect in the laminate to propagate cracks and weaken the hull till it failed.
The hull should have been inspected carefully after each dive for signs of de-lamination. The entire hull should probably been x-rayed or at minimum been ultrasonically scanned.
I saw a video clip where the CEO proudly stated he had purchased the interior lighting from Camper World.......if hed do that, what else was of substandard quality?
Sketchy doesn’t begin to describe this whole mess.