[Yardstick]

“I would assess that it’s mostly likely that the catastrophic failure the Titan sustained was caused by the viewport. It was previously stated by the CEO that each time he descended to that depth, the viewport deformed several inches inward.”
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Yikes, several inches of deformation.

[NorthMountain]

the viewport deformed several inches inward.

When the lead engineers on the project are uninspiring 50 year old White men, you don't get anywhere near this far down the rabbit hole without them saying "HELL NO!!!" (and backing it up with quantitative facts).

[AndyJackson]

Yikes, several inches of deformation. A favorite trick in a nuclear submarine is to tie a string across the engineroom and when diving deep watch the string sag. Steel deforms under pressure. The problem is designing the hull with siffening frames to ensure that compressive hoop stress remains compressive hoop stress and not turn into squish flat stress.

[steve86]

Seems that even a few mm would be unacceptable if it is carbon composite deforming, maybe ok for certain metal structures. Inches? And they continued to dive in it????

[SauronOfMordor]

AND made with carbon fiber which was gotten cheap from Boeing because it was past its expiration date for aircraft manufacture.

[dware]

Video I watched he said it was about a quarter of an inch, I believe. So, with that much play, and this being the 5th dive, I’d say the contraction and expansion probably heavily weakened the 7 inch thick, 80 pound chunk of plexiglass.

[Mean Daddy]

My recollection was the port was useless at that depth and cameras would show the occupants of the wreck.