The Flaws In The Construction Of The Titanic
Introduction
On April 14, 1912, in the cold north Atlantic, the Titanic sunk in the ocean after hitting an iceberg. A double-bottomed hulled portioned into sixteen compartments, designed and constructed the ship. The compartments were watertight according to the designers, but the ship had an unidentified design flaw since the compartments tops remained unsealed. Because of these flaws, water got into the top of the ruptured compartment to the unspoiled compartments after the collision. This aspect led to the leaning and the eventual sinking of the ship that caused massive deaths. The designers of the ship did not anticipate the design flaws and weaknesses. According to Martin, unanticipated design weaknesses get recognized when catastrophic failures occur (1). Designers fail to foresee failures because of technical, cognitive and unavoidable reasons.
The structural faults in the legendary ocean liner exposed it to violent seas. Researchers who filmed and assessed unrevealed part of keel uncovered the flaws. The researchers maintained that the flaws reduced the period the ship could remain floating after striking the iceberg (Sperko 8). Poor design was the leading cause of the vessel breaking into two at a ten-degree angle. According to Coles and Smith, a design flaw spawned by an overconfident engineer instigated the sinking of the vessel. The significant effect masterpiece sank prematurely into its own chasm. Immediately executives sought for solutions’. A specialist by the name Teasdale, in recognizing the issues and customizing solutions renewed the lost trust of the design team through solving problems that other designers failed to identify (Coles and Smith 227).
According to constructors of the ship, Titanic could have stayed floating for 2 to 3 days after colliding (McMahon 23). This could have allowed adequate time for ships nearby to offer their support. However, after hitting an enormous iceberg, the ship sank in a lesser amount of time, precisely 3 hours. This led to destruction of the three hundred feet of the hull of the ship with the collision allowing water to overflow into 6 of the 16 watertight compartments.
During a journey in 1991 by scientists to the wrecked ship, they found a large piece of metal on the floor of the ocean that was a section of the hull of the Titanic (McMahon 23). The metal contained 3 rivet holes, and following the discovery of the metal, intensive research triggering uncovering of more clues that caused the swift sinking of the ship (Sperko 8). The design flaw lied on material failures. When the Titanic struck the massive iceberg, the steel hull and bent iron rivets fell short because of weak fracture. Brittle fracture, a form of disastrous malfunction in structural equipments, takes place without preceding plastic deformation. Brittle fracture takes place at high speed. Causes of weak fractures consist of high effect loading, high content of sulphur and reduced temperatures (McMahon 23). During the time of the Titanic tragedy, the three causes of weak fracture were present. The temperature of the water was lower than freezing, the ship travelled at an increased speed after the iceberg incident and the hull steel held increased sulphur levels (McMahon 23).
The idea that hull steel’s brittle fracture had a hand in the Titanic tragedy followed the discovery of a portion of hull steel in the Titanic wreck. Following the cleaning of part of the hull steel, scientists realized that edges of the steel seemed nearly destroyed. The metal had no sign of deformation or bending. Apparently, high quality steel used in ship construction is more flexible and can deform instead of breaking. However, malfunction of the riveted joints and splitting of the plates of the hull became obvious in the impact area. The plate tears showed little deformation while the edges were extraordinarily sharp with brittle fractures appearance. More proof of the hull steel brittle structure prevailed when a coupon of steel hull from the wreck of the Titanic got exposed to Charpy test. The Charpy tests measure the weakness of an equipment or material (McMahon 23). The test revealed the possibility of weak fracture of the steel hull. The test also revealed high levels of sulphur and oxygen, which makes it clear that the metal was of poor quality, a semi-kilned low carbon metal made through the open-earth procedure. Increased oxygen levels trigger an augmented flexible to weak change temperature. The Titanic steel metal had a transition temperature of 25 to 30 degrees Celsius. High levels of sulphur augment steel brittleness through interrupting the structure of the grain.
Besides material failures, design flaws of watertight compartments in the lower part of Titanic were a contributing aspect in the disaster. The under part of the ship had sixteen watertight compartments that designers could have sealed off. Sealing off got completed after the damage, but water from some compartments spilled over into the neighboring compartments (McMahon 22). The compartments were horizontally watertight with open tops and extended walls that were a few feet from the waterline. If the slanting bulkheads were a few feet higher, the water could not get into the damaged compartments. The sinking could have been slow thereby allowing time for help. The intense flooding of the compartments bow pulled the ship underneath the waterline. The watertight compartments were not useful in preventing the damage caused by the iceberg collusion (McMahon 22).
Material failures and watertight compartments led to the titanic tragedy. The watertight compartments held waters in the ship bow. If the compartments were absent from the ship, the inflowing water would have spread out. Though the ship would have sunk, the sinking would not have been so rapid, but the ship would have remained floating for close to six hours before failing. This would have given neighboring ships time to offer help to the crew and passengers.
Work Cited
Sperko, Walter, “Rivets and the Titanic”, Mechanical Engineering, 134.6(2012): 8
McMahon, Jim, “The Titanic’s watery grave”, Junior Scholastic, 111.1(2008): 22-23.
Martin, James. Unexpected consequences: why the things we trust fail: Why the things we trust fail. New York: ABC-CLIO, Sep 30, 2011.
Coles, Eve, Smith, Denis. Risk management and society. New York: Springer, Jul 31, 2001.Print
