The back half stern area

[malcolm G chapman]

> Mark. The skill of riveting hull plating to make them watertight is now a lost art, I have no problem with riveting, I even vacation on large tall ships with riveted steel hulls from that time period and they are still watertight especially crup steel hulls, however I believe titanic and her sisters were built with with a higher carbon steel content that made the hulls plating and rivets brittle. this plate was made to last,not made or designed to take high impact of projectiles like a war ship or comming into contact with a berg,as it was totally imposible to think this could ever happen with all her modern navigational aids at the time plus radio reports and ice field warnings from other ships transiting the same sea lanes. Reaming a hole that was already punched for a certain size rivet to get past the cracks would leave one with a very sloppy hole!and suseptable to leaks and plate movement Any reaming done was due to slight missalighnment of the connecting plate holes or holes in the attaching beams behind the shell plating. Thanks Malcolm.

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi Paul,

I'm glad you found the information interesting.

Hi Malcolm,

I'm not sure if I misunderstood you earlier. If I did, my apologies.

What I thought you were saying is that the process of 'cold punching' the rivets could aid the development of micro-cracks (which as I understand it is why some of the rivets on the two sisters were reamed in high-stress areas as Scott has said). I don't disagree with these comments, and I didn't understand you to say that you had a problem with riveting by itself -- after all, it was the common practice in 1909-11.

I'm always open to discussion as to the composition of the steel used on these liners, but I had gathered the impression from this discussion that you were implying that other contemporary liners were made of better steel -- which I don't agree with. I'll always respect an alternative point of view even if I disagree with it, yet I simply don't think the evidence is strong enough to support the assertion. However, I appreciate that it's a very complex scientific analysis and I'll readily admit that it's not my speciality. It's been a while since I read a number of articles on the subject.

Best wishes,

Mark.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>however I believe titanic and her sisters were built with with a higher carbon steel content that made the hulls plating and rivets brittle. this plate was made to last,not made or designed to take high impact of projectiles like a war ship or comming into contact with a berg<<

Malcolm...please...stop, count to ten, catch your breath..whatever. Right now, all you're doing is using slighty varied rephrasing of your claims to repeat yourself. Unfortunately, repeating an assertion (Which is what you're doing) that's at best demonsterably questionable, at worst temprocentric, anachronistic, and the result of contemporary mythmaking, (Which yours is on all counts) does not make it so.

The steel used in the hull of the Titanic was manufactured in acid lined open hearth furnaces by the Dalzell and D. Colvilles & Co. and was about as good as it got no matter where you went. Virtually every other steel manufacturer in the country used the same process and nearly the same formulas. This was known as "Battleship Steel" because it was in fact used in the construction of British warships!

It was not the higher carbon which made some of the plates brittle, but the fact that the open hearth process of the time made it *possible* for certain impurities to creep in such as sulpher and phosphorus. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't. These formulas and methods wouldn't change signifigently for another 35 years.

Now let's also be mindful of the fact that the Titanic was running at nearly her full service speed of 21 knots at the time of the accident. When you have a mass of 50,000 plus tonnes moving at 21 knots in a medium with no friction to wor with and running into a mass of up to 250,000 tonnes, the smaller object...in this case the Titanic...invariably get's the dirty end of the stick. That's not a question of bad steel. That's just Sir Issac Newton and his laws of motion working against you.

>>it was totally imposible to think this could ever happen with all her modern navigational aids at the time plus radio reports and ice field warnings from other ships transiting the same sea lanes.<<

No, it was not impossible to think that this could happen. The possibility of running into an iceberg was taken seriously enough that some ships like the Mauritania, diverted the courses south to avoid the ice without being ordered to do so. Other lines such as the owners of the Mount Temple specifically forbade entering icefields for any reason, and put that proscription in writing.

And if I may, what modern navigation aides? Other then radio, and somebody with a pair of binoculars or telescope and the compass, the only navigation aide the Titanic had was the same one that seafarers had been using since Og the Caveman went out on the river on a log thousands of years ago...that being the Mark I Mod 0 Eyeball.

The radio was the only recent invention having been developed at the end of the 19th Century. The others had been in use in one form or another for several centuries.

Now earlier I asked "what evidence is there that any plates in the area of the impact broke away?". So far, you've been offering arguements but no evidence. Perhaps on some level I wasn't clear enough so let's try again and I'll try to be more explicit:

What evidence is there...from the wreck itself...that the plates in the area of the impact with the ice shattered and broke away on impact? If you can, please be so kind as to present scientific documentation of same which has survived the scrutiny of the peer review process.

 

[Donald J A Smith]

Michael's high-quality, steely remarks are what first tempted me to bravely venture into the sometimes cold, dangerous waters of 'ET'. I feel that such remarks as he has just made warrants our continuing admiration. Because 'Titanic's' building budget was 'practically unsinkable'; incorporating, among other innovations, the first industrial-scale use of aluminium - as aluminium-bronze; not widely used until the 1920s - to counter corrosion: I cannot believe that corners were cut, but that all was state-of-the-art for 1912. And well beyond.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Donald, I'd be interested in hearing about this aluminium-bronze alloy you mentionmed, as well as information on how it was used.

For my own money, I don't really think any corners were cut either save on whatever dictates the customer made. Harland & Wolff did their work on a cost plus type of contract where the builder was essentially told to produce the best ship they could and they had a remarkably free hand to do it, with the bills presented to White Star being paid promptly and without question.

It strikes me as unlikely in the extreme that any such relationship could have continued for very nearly the life of the line itself if the builder was producing and delivering shoddy goods.

 

[malcolm G chapman]

>Michael. I understand what your saying, I dont think the issue is shoddy work, its more about choices. The ship owner should follow the recomendations and expertise of the ship builder, unfortunatlly this dosent always happen with the builder bowing to the ship owner. what if! in a meeting at the planning stage the builder offers the owner two types of hull plating. One type is more impact resistant more malable steel used in warships however can be suseptable to corrosion requiring more maintinance and painting. The other is a harder steel less impact resistant but will last longer, less maintainance, less suseptable to corrosion and readylly available locally! Since this is a passenger ship not a war ship not expecting impact to the hull from anything I wonder which the owners would chose! More choises! where the proffesional bows to the owners wishes. The T is making exellent time cutting through flat calm seas in the north Atlantic,other than a small coal bunker fire thats being attended to everybody is happy it should be a record making maiden voyage! Radio room reports warnings from other ships that an Ice field has entered the shipping lanes ahead of T. The captain wants to shut down for the night as have other ships(normal practice in this situation)due to fog,low visabillity and no moon, but the owners and their investers do not want to dissapoint well wishers in New York by arriving hours late, captain told to press on through the ice field, wrong choice! The hard low maintainance plate that wasent supposed to take a high impact takes an impact.

In retrospect, the shipping lanes and their location were established in the days of sail using the gulf stream, like hoping on a coveyer belt. It fails me why the T,s captain chose to stay in the shipping lanes? With T,s speed he could have gone to Port with a south west heading for a couple of hundred miles (10 hrs)that would have put him in warmer open waters miles in front of the fog imitting Ice field, then made a course correction for marthers vinyard then New York all on time! It seams to me the owners and investers had more control of the T than the captain! another wrong choice!

Reaming plate holes.Its always amazed me that the thousands of holes in hull plating line up at all, these hole lay out people were very accurate, however as in the riveted steel in tall buildings or bridges there is always a hole or two that dosent line up, this requires the use of a reamer to take out the offending steel in the missaligned hole in order to let the rivet pass through. Thanks Malcolm.

 

[malcolm G chapman]

> Michael I have already answered this but hear it is again: Sorry, I dident mean the plates broke away as a whole plate, I ment after failier or shearing of the rivets by the heavy plate in the impact area would cause the plate to open from the hull frames it was riveted too and water to rush inside the hull!Or as it was believed at the time the 180ft gash made by the iceberg! You may notice the photo of the Britanic in ET(made of the same plating showing the area of impact) shows the hull plating shattered and broken off like a plate glass window! thanks Malcolm. >

 

[Donald J A Smith]

Michael: At one stroke, the weight (though in that only marginally) of Titanic's anchors and of its propellers was reduced - but their vulnerability to the corrosive effects of atmosphere and sea-water rather dramatically so - by the introduction (and for the first time, I believe) of aluminium-bronze in its large-scale industrial use.

 

[malcolm G chapman]

> Sorry I find Mr. Smiths use of aluminium some what miss leading. #1 There is no way to adhear alluminium to steel anchors, Anchors are sopposed to be heavy in order to work #2 props are bronze, little or any corrosion. If anything the use of aluminium could have been used in room and inner deck wall panaling or used in decrotive fixtures.

 

[Donald J A Smith]

Malcolm: Aluminium - simply as aluminium - was an innovative feature aboard Titanic merely as the seats on exercise equipment in the gymnasium. I assure you that much research lies behind the remarks I made. And because I hoped they might arouse something like the level of interest you've shown, I thank you for this. Don

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>a meeting at the planning stage the builder offers the owner two types of hull plating. One type is more impact resistant more malable steel used in warships however can be suseptable to corrosion requiring more maintinance and painting.<<

Malcolm, I'm afraid you're missing something here. The steel used in the construction of the Olympic class liners was the same steel used in the construction of Great Britain's warships. Cut it any way you like, it was simply the best available to shipbuilders in Great Britain at the time and Harland & Wolff went with it. There was no debate as to what kind to use as there was nothing to debate. White Star wanted the best available and they got it.

The simple fact of the matter is the sheer mass of the Titanic at high speed vs. the sheer mass of the iceberg was more then any ship could have survived, even if they had the very best 21st century steels available then...which they didn't.

The whole steel and rivet's thing is a purely modern day red herring. No more and no less.

And a little historical sidenote: Contrary to what a lot of the popular histories would have you believe, the Titanic was not trying to break any records for speed, nor was she capable of doing so. There is some conjectural evidence that she *might* have been attempting to better the Olympic's time, but at the time of the accident, she was going at her expected service speed, and not all out flank speed.

Second historical note: The Titanic had no gash! What she suffered was the usual collection of split seams, buckled plates and sheered rivets that any ship would have suffered in a similar accident.

>>captain wants to shut down for the night as have other ships(normal practice in this situation)due to fog,low visabillity and no moon, but the owners and their investers do not want to dissapoint well wishers in New York by arriving hours late, captain told to press on through the ice field, wrong choice! <<

Nope...sorry...didn't happen that way. There was no fog and no reason to slow down. Captain Smith was known as something of a hot-dogger and needed little persuasion if any to just keep right on going as was the normal practice of the time. Otyher shis did much the same, and were navigated in a similar fashion. A rather embarassing fact that came out at the inquiries.

>>In retrospect, the shipping lanes and their location were established in the days of sail using the gulf stream, like hoping on a coveyer belt. It fails me why the T,s captain chose to stay in the shipping lanes?<<

That's because he didn't stay in the shipping lanes, She was actually a bit south of them.

>>You may notice the photo of the Britanic in ET(made of the same plating showing the area of impact) shows the hull plating shattered and broken off like a plate glass window! thanks Malcolm.<<

One: I found no such photo of the Britannic on ET, and in any event, I've seen quite a few photos of the wreck. Not one of them shows any plates that were shattered like glass.

Two: That was *not* what I asked you. What I asked you was "What evidence is there...from the wreck itself...that the plates in the area of the impact with the ice shattered and broke away on impact? If you can, please be so kind as to present scientific documentation of same which has survived the scrutiny of the peer review process."

 

[malcolm G chapman]

> Michael, I thought had already explained but I guess that must have been another poster.When I said plates shattered and broke away, I dident mean whole plates, as breaking away from the ship and settling to the bottom, I ment shearing of the rivets and fracturing and shattering of the plates, some in aprox a 8" jaged semi circle area out from and around the rivets on the edges of the plate due to a massive impact of all that wieght. "Breaking away" was ment as the plate on these edges or plate edge overlap areas breaking away from the steel frames behind the plate that the plate was attached too.Even breaking awaya half inch or more below the water line would cause an unstoppable ingress of water. this report was compiled in the "sname" investigation with photos showing small sections of the hull plating that had shattered and broken away in the area of the connecting rivet edges of the plate that they had retreaved from the sea floor, parts still had the rivets heads inplace but sheared at the frame connection, others showed the rivets missing, believed to be sheared.I believe the "sname" report as they are professionals in this area, the other reports where they compare a canal lock made of riveted steel from the same time frame sounds like a smoke screan, that lock will never experiance the same conditions, or strain or impacts as a ship at sea.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>When I said plates shattered and broke away, <<

And what I asked was "What evidence is there...from the wreck itself...that the plates in the area of the impact with the ice shattered and broke away on impact? If you can, please be so kind as to present scientific documentation of same which has survived the scrutiny of the peer review process."

The reason I ask this is because the side scan sonar imaging of the region below the mudline where the collision actually occured simply doesn't bear that out. The SNAME report may well have been compiled by professionals, but it's not without it's problems, quite a few of which have been discussed in the Collisions/Sinkings Theories folder. You might want to search them out.

As to the rivets, I recall addressing that and pointing to the physics of the matter. Having rivets being sheered away as well as having hullplating buckled, bent, and even cracked with seams being split is only to be expected in events where a large ship comes in contact with an iceberg at high speed.

None of this is de facto evidence of inferior steel.

 

[malcolm G chapman]

> "None of this is de facto evidence of inferior steel." These are your words michael not mine I said "the wrong type of steel" very few shipyards then and no shipyards since will built ships of this type of steel, One of cunards ships that was built with this type of steel, she was hit with a topedo amid ships,her plate was heavy enough she should have survived but dident,the impact sheared the plate rivets and she opened up like a tin can and rolled over in 18 min. Your referance of Side scan sonar dosent hold water, this sonar can find and show outlines of imeges of hull forms below the sea bottom, but show details of hull plating and impact areas! I dont think so, if it did they would have shown it! and we wouldent be hear wasting are time would we!

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>These are your words michael not mine I said "the wrong type of steel"<<

Semantically, it's the same thing. What you started out saying initially was this;

quote:

The steel may have been the best of its type at the time, but it was the wrong type! it was proberbly more ready available and cheaper but it was the wrong type, H&W had to know this, plus they were under pressure to get the job done

Please take note of what I underlined and the implications become pretty clear.

>>few shipyards then and no shipyards since will built ships of this type of steel,<<

Again, misleading and in one respect just plain dead wrong. The same type of steel using the same formulas and made by the same methods was widely used, not just in Britain's merchent vessels, but in her warships as well.

>>One of cunards ships that was built with this type of steel, she was hit with a topedo amid ships,her plate was heavy enough she should have survived but dident,the impact sheared the plate rivets and she opened up like a tin can and rolled over in 18 min.<<

Once again, misleading and irrelevant. The Lusitania was the victim of a torpedo loaded out with a couple of hundred pounds of high explosive. The quality of the steel had absolutely nothing to do with why the Lusitania sank, it was not an issue in 1915, and it has not been an issue in any modern investigations or theories. (And since you brought it up, you might want to do some research on the problems caused by assymetric flooding, and what happens when watertight integrity is compromised by explosions, a very possible failure to set watertight boundries, as well as bursting steam pipes and possibly even a boiler giving up the ghost)

>>Your referance of Side scan sonar dosent hold water, this sonar can find and show outlines of imeges of hull forms below the sea bottom, but show details of hull plating and impact areas! I dont think so, if it did they would have shown it!<<

But *show* it is exactly what that one Discovery channel documentary did. They negelected to show the additional and even more extensive damage on the port side and the reality is that it's virtually impossible to distinguish iceberg damage from impact with the bottom. Nevertheless, is was indeed shown and it was seen in millions of households.

Now once more, could you please address the following question which you've been conspicuously avoiding: "What evidence is there...from the wreck itself...that the plates in the area of the impact with the ice shattered and broke away on impact? If you can, please be so kind as to present scientific documentation of same which has survived the scrutiny of the peer review process."​