Last voyage for Costa Concordia cruise ship

http://www.fincantieri.it/cms/data/pages/files/000079_resource3_orig.pdf

 

How about naming some of these great designers of 1912 Gian?
Or that could be a good topic on its own.

 

Thanks for this PDF link Peter. The charts are interesting.

 

The Titanic was designed by William Pirrie and Thomas Andrewsby who was the chief designer.
By agreeing to remove a lot of lifeboats (for aesthetic reasons!) they have made ​​a mistake scary.
It is my absolute opinion that designers of Concordia, like their predecessors of Titanic, have designed a not safe ship.

But Andrew and Pirrie Have no previous experience.
So they are less guilty of their "grandchildren".

 

I think you will find that for a ship of this size with as many passengers SOLAS 90 would require a '3 compartment standard'

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-26/costa-cruise-line-owner-questioned-in-rome/3794044

 

Comparison to Titanic is not really valid (though inevitable). Very different deisign conditions, etc. A number of coincidences caused the accident, but Titanic ultimately failed because the designers had specified a new type of alloy that was both strong and tough, and allowed for a larger hull to be designed. The steel supplier could not deliver the quantities in time to meet contractual delivery schedule so substituted a different alloy without authorization. the alloy had the same ultimate strength but was brittle (did not have the same toughness). When it struck the ice burg the hull plates cracked open rather than just buckled, allow too many internal compartments to flood.

It went down fast, and ultimately the hull cracked in two. None of this was known until the wreckage was discovered more recently and it was found on the bottom in two pieces, and samples of the hull material was brought up and sent to a metallurgy lab. I had read a number of technical books when in collage on why it sank, all were speculation and none got it correct until the samples were tested.

You can only design for what you would reasonably anticipate, it would be far too costly to design for every stupid and inconceivable thing that MIGHT happen. Some fool will always find a way to thwart the best efforts of the designers.

The Concordia was ripped open on a rock, and almost everyone had gotten out. More would have gotten out had the crew had their act together it sounds like to me.

 

sounds like a Benetti built today

 

Did not hear about that accident powerabout. Do you have a link to the accident report?

 

Wade, W.C. 1986. The Titanic: End of a Dream, Penguin Books, p. 41:

....Alewander Carlisle,..... designed the Titanic, said: "Unless the Board of Trade and governments do not make it necessary to install a sufficient number of lifeboats, no manufacturer can afford so much useless weight"

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After this post, here I think exhausted my contribution.
Thank you for the exquisite hospitality.
Greetings to all and ...Gonfie Vele!

 

Hello Sir,

You are certainly right...
But it seems that sometime the "Solas 90" calculations lead to a "2 compartments standard" for similar vessel. We obviously need more information about that matter.

Guillermo in a previous post asked if somebody has info regarding floodable length for "Costa Concordia", which is clearly a related issue. I am afraid that we will not have answers to our questions shortly.

Have you an opinion on the list which has developped quite rapidly ? Normally, according to "Solas 90" no large heel should have been experienced (cross flooding devices... transverse watertight bulkheads... no longitudinal watertights bulkheads like in wing tanks or whatever without transverse connecting ducts, ...). Something has gone wrong after the collision. Actual damage size compare to "theoretical" damage size ? Too large free surface effect after flooding ?


Francois-Xavier Nettersheim

 

meaning any Benetti, they use high tensile paper thin steel
try dry docking one

 

I cannot agree with this analysis. The long raking damage to the Titanic's hull openned it up in a very similar way to that of the Costa Concordia. It is all a question of ship's speed and the energy of the collision and the fact that any riveted hull of that period would have split either at the longitudinal seams and/or by tearing of the plating in the same circumstances. All ship's steel of the time at the Titanic was relatively brittle at the temperatures then prevailing. It was not until after WW II that notch tough steels such as you would expect to see in the welded bilge structure of the Costa Concordia were widely applied and these are only applied to provide crack arrestors after the demise of riveted hulls.

You should also note that that the sinking of Titanic was 'slow and graceful' (as required as the basis for the SOLAS regulations derived from her demise) over a period of some 2 hr 40 min, which is a relatively long time for a vessel which is doomed to sink, and she sank upright without capsize! The fact that she ultimately broke in two after an extreme trim condition developed is not a matter of significant concern as ships are never designed to support such a large proportion of their hull unsupported by buoyancy.

 

I refer you to my post 10 on thread Simulating Costa Concordia

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/25/us-italy-ship-regulation-idUSTRE80N1OD20120125