Sinking Process Question

M

Michael F. Koch

Member
Have been doing a lot of thinking about the way Titanic sank. I have one question. I know once the 6 damaged compartments were completely filled with water, the ship was for a time at equilibrium. I understand that the water then began entering hatches on the forecastle deck and then seeping down into the undamaged compartments through piping, hatches, etc. Why then didn't she settle more in the water when these compartments started filling up instead of having her angle increase in the water?

Thanks,

Mike.
 
Michael

I don't understand what you mean when you say that the ship was for a time at equilibrium.

As each compartment filled her angle was bound to increase as she was weighed down at the bow more and more until there was so much water in the bow (16000 tons I believe) that the stern rose from the water, the weight could not be carried, and she split in two.

You have raised an interesting point in my mind.

How did the Olympic class ships maintain an even keel on their voyages when the weight of the engines in the stern must surely have been more than the weight in the bows.

Common sense tells me that the stern should have been a lot lower in the water than the bows, but where did common sense ever get me!?

Regards

Sam
 
Hi Sam, The weight of the engines aft would have been balanced out by the weight of the boilers...all filled with water...going forward as well as the coal in the bunkers. Any trim remaining could be compensated for by shifting ballast, taking it on, or discharging it as needed.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
 
Sam, as the damaged compartments became full of water, the aft compartments were not yet flooded, so the flooding must have stopped or decreased for a time until the water starting entering forecastle hatches, etc. and then spilled into the empty aft compartments. My point is, is you would think if the aft compartments started flooding, that extra weight to the aft would have caused her to settle at least for awhile, but there must have been something else I'm not thinking of causing her angle to keep increasing. Follow me yet? Thanks!

Mike.
 
Michael S - thank you...the little light bulb in my head lit up!

Michael F - As far as the flooding is concerned, after the first five compartments filled it was purely a case of the bow being pulled so low in the water that water overflowed into the next compartment astern, the bulkheads not being high enough.

Water flooding through the bunker hatches and forecastle would not have directly affected the flooding of the undamaged compartments.

Her angle increased purely due to the fact that the water in the bow weighed the ship down so far.

I don't think that the water had reached Boiler Room No.2 by the time the ship broke up and I believe it is likely that parts of the bow section were dry right up to that point.

It seems that the aft compartments never got a chance to flood in the same way as the forward ones so the ship had no time to settle.

Hope I'm on the ball. Scream loudly and in frustration if I'm not!!

Regards

Sam
 
Sam, that makes sense, it's just that I've read here and other places that there was a period when the forward compartments filled that the flooding slowed or stopped for awhile until the water was able to get into some of the further aft compartments, and it wasn't just the clear cut comonly thought case of the water just spilling over each bulkhead on so on. But, you're right, at least part of the stern had air in it as she went down judging by the way she imploded under the surface.

Thanks,

Mike.
 
There is little doubt that when the five damaged compartments were full that water must have found its way through the superstructure and down into boiler rooms further aft.

I think you are right that it must have slowed for a while. There are descriptions of bulkheads collapsing and torrents of water raining down from the decks above, but I think the flooding of a new compartment must have started with a small trickle of water before getting faster and faster until the compartment was full and the ship pulled further under water.

The flooding would have again slowed and the same process would ahve begun again, with a torrent of water filling the compartment by the end of its flooding.

I believe the evidence for this is borne out by the wave which swept up the boat deck minutes before she split. Another compartment suddenly fills much quicker than it was at the start and forward motion is caused, generating the wave.

I also wonder now whether the flooding of boiler rooms four and five was the slowest part of the sinking process. The forward five compartments filled quite quickly, then there seems to have been a long gap while these compartments filled (I believe it was quite near the end when water was seen at the base of the forward grand staircase on D Deck).

The process then seems to have sped up sharpley to the point when the ship split.

Perhaps Mr Standart would be so kind as to share any info he may have on how many compartments needed to be flooded before the ship broke up?

Kind Regards

Sam

Regards

Sam
 
Sam and Michael,

The slowing of the flooding also has to do with water pressure. When the ship first started flooding, there was nothing on the inside of the ship to slow it down. However, as time when on, the water levels inside the flooded compartment and outside the ship became close to one another, so the pressure differential at the damage point was small, and the rate of flooding had slowed down.

Actually, the principals of how water pressure works is used in conjunction with bulkheads to stop flooding. If, for example, Titanic would have taken on water in the first four compartments, the flooding would have stopped, and the water levels(ie: the height of the water) on the inside and outside from the damage point would have been the same.

later
-Dean
 
Wilding's calculations estimated that the first five compartments were flooded after about 40 minutes (i.e. by 12:20) and that there was 16,000 tons of water aboard. Hackett & Bedford (also from Harland and Wolff) went back through Wilding's analysis in 1996, using the same assumptions, and came to much the same conclusions. They put the time that the first five compartments were flooded at 12:40.

What's wrong here is that with everything from boiler room #6 forward flooded to the waterline, bulkhead E (between boiler rooms 5 & 6) is below the water line. Progressive flooding should have proceeded fairly rapidly from there. Yet it did not. Titanic survived at least another hour and a half. How? Hackett & Bedford had to tinker with the flooding rates to get their model to float long enough.

With bulkhead E below the waterline, water will flow over the top of the bulkhead between boiler rooms 5 and 6. Yet there is no report of that. When the bunker door in boiler room #5 failed and Barrett escaped with his life, he found water on E deck, apparently went directly to the boats and escaped in boat #13, launched about 1:40. What happened during the intervening hour?

A good example of top-down flooding may be boiler room #4. Wheat reported water flowing down the stairs into the Turkish bath, above BR#4. But water would have difficulty flowing from the Turkish bath downward into BR#4--it could find its way down around pipe openings, through the non-watertight seams in the decks, etc., but there were no large openings to allow water down. Perhaps it was water that flowed down from the Turkish bath that filled up the space under the stokehold plates and resulted in the rising water that Cavell reported?

Perhaps Wilding's assumptions were wrong? He assumed that #3 hold flooded to the water line very early, based on reports of water in the mail hold. Wilding assumed that the mail hold and #3 hold flooded from the bottom up. What if water entered the mail hold through a smaller wound in the side and #3 hold flooded from the top down? That could significantly increase the time required for #3 hold to be lost and the time when first five compartments were flooded.

Cal
 
G'Day Sam, I don't see how I can top anything Cal said in regards the rate of flooding, but I think you may find it useful to take a look at the ship's general plans. The icecube tray comparison is a little misleading to describe how the flooding progressed in that water did not just go up one side of the bulkhead and down the other side.

There's the matter of the deck being in the way so once the water had come up, it would first flow forward to fill anything that hadn't been flooded befor moving aft. After that, it would have to find ways to flow back down into the aftermost compartments.

Anyone who has actually served on a ship, particularly a large one, knows that a ship is a veritable rat's warren of passageways, corridors, rooms, vents, wireways and plumbing. While not watertight, any number of non-structural bulkheads would have served to slow down and/or channel floodwaters until it either percolated through or burst through. Corridors (like Scotland Road) would have channeled water along certain routes until it could find it's way down through deck hatches, scuttles, ventilation ducts as well as into any spaces on that particular deck.

I can't speak as to how many watertight sections would have to be filled befor the ship broke up. In this case, it's more a matter of going down by the head as opposed to say capsizing. With the stern coming up out of the water and with it's weight supported by nothing, the bending loads imposed on the structure were simply more then it could survive. I'll leave explaining the math to chaps like Cal Haines who is a far better number cruncher then I'll ever be, but it's really not rocket science. Bend something past the point that it can survive and it breaks

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
 

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