HazelNuts39
At this point, the material is irrelevant. The Arm is meant to resist tension in a roughly linear fashion, depending on the angle of the deck at contact. It isn't engineered, nor is anything else, to withstand the loads of Water entry at any velocity. It is a handy element to examine because it is available, and as evidence, can help (perhaps greatly).
We are to accept as virtually certain the VS popped out after injecting itself into the mounting bed, at an angle very similar to tailstrike (~). What happens? the VS destroys the massive and complex architecture of the mass as it enters, and the teensy little tip of Arm36g pops off. I have designed and built hinges and articulating panels for the last 30 years, in many applications, and have written legal prose to describe Failure analysis. The Rudder at the speed necessary to destroy the sub structure would have rippled, torn free of everything, and the hinges would be toast.
Look at the Hinge stack on the Rudder's articulating edge. They are conformal, appear to be ready for a change of airframe and save some carrier the cost of a new one. The hinge's Design condition is torsional, its strength is in the plane of sweep, stop to stop. Like the VS, the failure postulated involves the Hinges in anything but a planned for event. I wouldn't expect them to give up without a fight, but Rudder vertical energy seems to have left them unscathed. I stand to be corrected; I am but an observer privy to some nice photography, The Rudder VS looks like it went to the Waltz, not to a destruction derby.
Tension? nothing beats Titanium. Aluminum? Again, it doesn't matter, the Newtons were there, but I think the VS was in another place at the time.
henra
I am satisfied that my last model gave a respectable report on a falling structure. I have a design, and a digital set to build a 1/4 scale model. Maybe if some one wants one, we'll take a balloon ride over the ADIZ. I know a Coastie.
mm43
I postulated a serious symphony due to Rudder Flutter at altitude, the vibration plus the impossibly rapid reversing of torsional loading may have done in our little tip. Again, the Hinges, Boss.
bear