Not entirely sure why lack of berg details would be prohibitive to modelling, just yet another uncertainty. I'd suggest though that even if computer modelling cannot handle this now 100 years after the event, in another 100 it will. Someone will have created an off the shelf system for industrial purposes and then a user will have done everything necessry for the Titanic case just for entertainment, or publicity.
I'm not convinced the collision would be a continuous contact along a significant length all at the same time: the theories I have heard talk more about a 'tin opener' effect where a relatively small point of contact is ripping a line along the ship as it moves. This would maximise damage at the point of contact yet presumably also minimise drag on the ship. Like a head on ramming, I think a wide area impact on the side might have been more surviveable.
Jim, dont really understand your diagrams but will consider them. The centre of mass of the ship remains fixed and is the point about which it will turn. There will be complex reactions upon it from the water resisting other forces. The two sources of force are the collision reaction between two large moving objects, and the continuing force of the engines and rudder. The resultant of all these forces will be a rotation and rotational velocity about the centre of mass, and a translation and linear velocity in some direction (ie moving bodily in some direction, possibly sideways). I'm not sure, but I suspect your diagrams talking about an 'apparent pivot point' are a different way to look at this.
During the collision, the momentum of the ship would be considered to be acting through its centre of mass, the impact forces acting at the point of contact. The forces might also cause the ship to heel over as well if they were not balanced acting at the same height, introducing a third dimension to worry about. SGSC googles as South Georgia state college. I know little about ships or piloting.
The ball and chain strikes me as potentially misleading, but I suspect you might be talking about all this the way mariners might be taught it, rather than mechanical enginers? The force on the Titanic would never be along the direction of the chain, though its head might appear to move in that direction.
However, I don't know we necessarily disagree about the result, but I am still not convinced I have a feel for all the important issues or which forces dominate.
Now I think about it, I have always imagined that a ship turns so it is moving in the direction it is pointing. This is not necessarily true, ships can travel sideways too. What is perhaps happening as it turns is that the rudder provides a sideways force on the stern which rotates the ship. Then the drag from the water against the side of the ship impedes its motion in the original direction. The engines continue providing force in the forward direction, and it builds up speed in the new direction. This suggests that turning a ship causes braking and must slow it down? That although the head of Titanic might have been turned away from the berg, it could still be side slipping into it? Although ships must side slip when turning, I dont know how quickly the water would stop this? Turning a ship is maybe more like doing a handbrake turn with a car?
If side slip is actually significant, how familiar would ship's officers be with the concept of their ship side slipping while turning? Would even the officers onboard who had familiarity with Olympic know how Titanic would handle in an emergency turn at full speed?
