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Old 1st Aug 2008, 11:57
  #856 (permalink)  
airship
Uneasy Pleistocene Leftover
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
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You guys are mixing apples and Oranges imho. The material chosen for design is not the only factor in strength. The Toyota in that picture (not some "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" sealed window pickup you've imagined) is incapable of being pressurized. Ergo, the damage we see in the photo is not representative of what would happen in a reverse stress-engineered structure like a 747 pressure containment hull.
Is that why apparently solid houses literally "explode" when a tornado passes overhead? Is that why human-beings suffer 'the bends' if they don't respect the proper depth/time tables when ascending? Is that why fish caught at great depths have never been brought up to the surface alive (even those that are hooked at depths of a mere 100m. will end up with their gas-bladders in their mouths and succomb rapidly)...?! You're missing the point. Which is that we're discussing an almost instantaneous escape of highly-pressurised gas locally and in a relatively-confined space, leaving no appreciable time for a normal (or natural) equilibrium to reinstate itself...?! Perhaps, we're all (aircraft and living creatures) more fragile than you might think...?!
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