Always curious about the design of Titanic

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Edolyi, Feb 2, 2017.

  1. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Titanic was a victim of her times. When she was built, steaming across the Atlantic was quite commonplace and this caused a certain complacency among the owners and skippers. Incidents occurred occasionally, but nothing serious and the general thinking of the day was, we'd engineered structures that could easily exceed whatever mother nature or the sea could bring on. Titanic was well designed, very sophisticated and a capable craft. In hindsight, it's pretty easy to laugh at some of it, but in it's day, she was literally the best going. My understanding was the bulkhead were designed up to the weather decks, but were lowered to improve access.

    We'd conquered powered manned air flight, cruised across the sea at break neck speeds, designed and built huge monolithic structures that hadn't seen major incident in years, so I'll suggest the biggest flaw wasn't the design, which exceeded all of her requirements, but was simply complacency of the owners and crew. The skipper had a full career of uneventful crossings under his belt, the designers were top notch, well respected and the yard built one magnificent ship, by all accounts. How do you find fault with this.

    Since Titanic's fateful voyage, no other large ship has sideswiped an iceberg. In fact, there's some debate about her survival had she run smack into it, instead. I think she'd still have sank, with each compartment overflowing into the next and with the skipper's decision to open the watertights. In any case, we've come a long way in the last century.
     
  2. alan craig
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    alan craig Senior Member

    The documentary was Titanic: The New Evidence.
    Available in the UK on www.channel4.com
     
  3. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    There's no new evidence, just old speculation that has resurfaced. Bunker fires were very common in the era and this didn't present any issues, the iceberg collision didn't solve.
     
  4. JosephT
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    JosephT Senior Member

    I recall a study many years ago that concluded the steel used in this ship was brittle at colder temps, which allowed the hull to fracture as badly as it did. I looked it up and here's some feedback on it.

    "In the 1990s some material scientists concluded[71] that the steel plate used for the ship was subject to being especially brittle when cold, and that this brittleness exacerbated the impact damage and hastened the sinking. It is believed that, by the standards of the time, the steel plate's quality was good, not faulty, but that it was inferior to what would be used for shipbuilding purposes in later decades, owing to advances in the metallurgy of steelmaking"

    Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

    I suspect today's standard for larger ship hulls is still strong, but is a bit more flexible and will likely dent vs. fracture for most impacts.

    I recall the bulkheads also contributed. They were obviously not 100% water tight from bow to stern.

    So there are at least two areas to blame: a) steel hardness b) bulkeads

    The only remaining factor would be lifeboats. They obviously didn't get the job done.
     
  5. JosephT
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    JosephT Senior Member

  6. NavArc...
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    NavArc... Junior Member

    I don't agree that you so easily pinpoint the main causes to the distaster being the bulkheads, poor grade of steel and lifeboats. Please, explain what grade of steel should have been used for the hull. Let's not forget this ship was built over 100 years ago! Human error is as much to blame!
     
  7. JosephT
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    JosephT Senior Member

    You're absolutely correct human error was to blame. The items I noted have been credited as key contributors. The ship was supposed to be very safe. Some called it invincible. It was obviously not.

    For older ships like this you can only expect so much. Just because it's state of the art in its day doesn't mean it's 100% safe & reliable. I would argue no ship is.
     
  8. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    The steel was better than used on the vast majority of vessels of its era. The "event spiral" doomed the ship, from the time it left port. Many factors can be offered up, but it's the combination of these particular issues and more importantly, their sequence in the time line, that sealed her fate. I've done a fair bit of accident investigation and it's always the same, with few exceptions. Remove any one of the abutting issues and the incident's likelihood of occurring, drops quite dramatically, if at all.
     
  9. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    The Titanic clearly sank because the Illuminati bribed Aliens with the Oak Island treasure secretly recovered by the expedition FDR was on in order to hide the fact that she was really Britannic. The Ark of the Covenant was also hidden in her hold so it would stay lost.

    /best conspiracy theory of all time
     
  10. alan craig
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    alan craig Senior Member

    That sums it up, like most aircraft accidents.
     
  11. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    The best lifeboat the Titanic souls could have utilized was completely ignored; the iceberg itself was unsinkable.
     
  12. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Wasn't it also hundred as of yards away in the darkness by the time the ship finally stopped moving?
     
  13. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    No, it was this guy that caused it by creating a rift in the time/space contornium soinasodial repleneration 14 years earlier.

    Morgan Robertson

    [​IMG]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan

    More info about soinasodial repleneration here...



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o
     
  14. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    That is true but several trips a few hundred yards with a lifeboat is better than waiting for a ship that is miles away.
     

  15. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

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