Soviet Alpha-class titanium submarine creep-fatigue failure

Soviets built titanium submarines using Paton Institute technology. Within 2–3 years, they parked them in harbor due to leaks. Tom in 1980 was asked at Navy workshops how the Soviets solved the creep-fatigue interaction problem in titanium under continuous compressive stress; answer: they didn't.

The Soviets actually built a titanium submarine. [Tom holds up a weld made at Oregon Graduate Center.] This is a weld made at Oregon Graduate Center by one of the processes developed by Dr. Gurevich at the Paton Institute, because the Soviets spent hundreds of millions of dollars. We couldn't justify building the titanium submarine or spending the money to do the research, but the Soviets were under a different economic system and were driven by military needs much more than we are. It turns out their titanium submarine was somewhat of a disaster, and within two or three years they all just parked them in the harbor because they were developing leaks. The US Navy asked me, "How did the Soviets solve the creep-fatigue interaction of the titanium?" Titanium has this problem: if you put it under continuous compressive stress, even at room temperature or seawater temperature, it will start to slowly creep. Then if you flex it, there's an interaction, and the cracks grow ultra-fast. In 1980, when we learned about the Soviet Alfa subs, I went to some workshops and they said, "How'd they solve the problem?" I said, "I don't know." It turns out they didn't. They built these submarines and they had cracks. They had to park them.