Has anyone considered ice jammed in the hull breach

[Tim Foecke]

I had a revelation the other day, when I spilled a glass of ice tea. It happened to fall against something that held the huge quantity of ice cubes in place at the opening, and it was tipped over for a couple of seconds, and I only lost about 1 inch of tea. I got to thinking about whether the gap in the hull might have been crammed with broken pieces of ice from the berg. Over time, as the slightly-above-freezing water ran over the ice, it would have melted very slowly, lessening the opening in the hull slightly if it were wedging it open, but increasing the available area of the damage to let water through as time progressed. Any incongruities in the flooding analysis that this might address?

Just a random brain fart as I am preparing my slides to teach my class (Structure and Properties of Materials - Johns Hopkins University). You can only work on slides for so long before your mind starts to wander . . .

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Any incongruities in the flooding analysis that this might address?<<

Possibly, assuming ice was wedged in any of the openings in the first place. What incongruities did you have in mind?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Just the question I was about to ask, what incongruities in who's analysis?

 

[Tim Foecke]

I haven't made a detailed study of the flooding rates - just wondering if there are any reported cases of "hey, that's not right" in any of the flooding analyses.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I'm not aware of any. The most detailed analysis I've seen is the work done by Bedford and Hackett, and they mentioned no such anomolies that I can recall. They may have discussed something privately, but it never made it into their paper.

Edward Wilding did quite a bit of number crunching back in 1912, but all he ever discussed in public by way of his testimony and depositions never mentions any such reservations. If he had them, he kept them to himself.

If you've seen something that doesn't quite ring true, I'm all ears, but as far as I can see, this angle has never been explored.

Perhaps it should be.

 

[Will C. White]

Another thing to consider, and there's no way to test it approx. 95 years later, would be the "quality" of the ice, since there is no way to obtain an actual sample of the "guilty" iceberg. We know that some ended up shaving off and landed up forward, but this was probably from near the top, and soft. How hard was it say 100' below that? Was it that clear ice with no air in it that's almost steel hard? Just a little food for thought, and discussion. WILL

 

[Samuel Halpern]

"steel hard" Really??? Where is this coming from?

 

[N. James Wright]

The trouble is once we start to use words like "hard" in a general term it gets confusing because hardness, especially in metals can be quite scientifically measured - when I was at college we used both Rockwell and Vickers for the actual test.

How Ice would compare to steel I don't know.

In relation to Titanic I think there is lot more to consider in the dynamics of the collision besides the hardness of the primary materials involved.

 

[Tim Foecke]

Ice, even at absolute zero and of a perfect structure, has a hardness that is no more than 1/30th that of steel. This from a colleague, Prof. Erland Schulson at Darmouth, who has studied the mechanical properties of ice for over 30 years for the Navy and oil rig industry.

Anyone who says or implies otherwise is misinformed or blowing smoke.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Thanks Tim for that information. I understand that ice gets harder as temperatures get lower. But even at -20°C, ice is still less hard than an average fingernail (2 Mohs Vs. 2.5 Mohs; you could scratch it with your fingernails).

From James:

quote:

In relation to Titanic I think there is lot more to consider in the dynamics of the collision besides the hardness of the primary materials involved.

Absolutely. Just a few items to consider are: the contact area between the two objects, the contact angle relative to ship's direction of movement, the masses of the two objects, the relative speed at the time of contact, etc. What we know is that the ship's hull was deformed enough to let a certain amount of water enter the ship in a given period of time. It was based on this observation that the amount of equivalent hull opening area was calculated. There are no observations that I'm aware of that would suggest that the area of hull openings had increased over time by the effect that Tim talked about. That is not to say that there was no such affect at all, just that we don't have any evidence to support that there was. But feel free to speculate.​

 

[James Smith]

quote:

Ice, even at absolute zero . . .

Dr. Foecke (or some other person with knowledge of chemestry/physics), perhaps you could correct me. If I remember correctly from high school chemistry, at "absolute zero" (zero degrees Kelvin) matter would theoretically collapse because, within each atom, the electrons would no longer have sufficient energy to resist being pulled into the atom's nucleus. Am I wrong?

--Jim​

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Not a collapse James, just that the matter would be at its lowest theoretical energy level.

 

[Will C. White]

Sam-Sufficient force driving any material in any direction can cause tremendous damage. A point of clear, age hardened ice driven into a plate with sufficient force will buckle or pierce it. As to the fingernail, take one of those real clear ice cubes right out of the freezer and try and scratch it and see what gives first. My only point being is that mathmatical certainties don't always match real world application.

 

[Tim Foecke]

By stating even at absolute zero, I was trying to imply really, really, really cold.

Absolute zero is a theoretical construct in thermodynamics wherein entropy is zero. In experiments where I work, they cool atoms to near absolute zero. One of our 3 Nobel winners in physics, Bill Phillips, once told me in response to a question that if he ever reached absolute zero, because it is defined as a relative quantity, he would have to redefine to be cooler, since he shouldn't be able to reach it, by definition.

The concept of absolute zero has been mis-taught for years. Kind of like a third grade teacher asking kids which of these numbers can be divided by two, when they mean evenly divided by two. Oversimplification is rife.

Mister White - I don't care how cold, and "age hardened ice" is gibberish, I'm telling you that ICE DOESN'T PIERCE STEEL. That IS reality. Take it from a PhD materials scientist, gov't scientist and university professor. It's bunk. Doo-doo. Falderal. Hoo-hah. Grade A bolonium.

Can you tell I've heard this from students at my many talks hundreds of times?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Can you tell I've heard this from students at my many talks hundreds of times?<<

I do get that impression.