OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION
MATERIAL USED IN MANUFACTURING
FAILURE OF HULLS AND RIVETS
DESIGN FLAWS
THE SINKING
COMPOSITIONS OF MATERIAL
CONCLUSION
 introduction
o Titanic was built between 1911 and 1912 and began its journey on 10
April 1912 .

o Two days later at mid night around 11.40 it struck an ice berg which
damaged the hulls of the six compartments ahead.

o These compartments got flooded which as a result caused the sinking

of the ship , but the actual failure that caused the ship to sink was the
material failure of the rivets being used in the sealing of the hull plates.

o The ship sinked about in 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Material used in manufacture
Titanic was constructed of :-

“Thousands of one inch-thick mild steel plates”

“Two million steel and wrought iron rivets and equipped with
the latest technology”.

It was made up of low grade metals that were more brittle.
• Titanic's hull was triple riveted with using mild steel rivets,
and double riveted using wrought iron, in the central length of
the ship where maximum stress was assumed to be located .

• Where as the use of wrought iron and mild steel rivets instead
of steel rivets caused the titanic disaster to take place .

• The steel rivets have good strength as compared to wrought

iron.

• Titanic had experienced a great forcefull impact which caused

the six compartments of it to be opened to sea where the used
wrought iron rivets failed.
 THE FAILURE OF THE HULLS
AND THE RIVETS
• When the Titanic collided with the iceberg, the hull
steel and the wrought iron rivets failed because of
brittle fracture.

• The causes of brittle fracture include low

temperature, high impact loading, and high sulphur
content. The water temperature was below freezing,
the Titanic was travelling at a high speed on impact
with the iceberg, and the hull steel contained high
levels of sulphur.

• The typical high-quality ship steels mainly used

are ductile an deform but never break like the
wrought iron.
• There was CHARPY IMPACT TEST
conducted on a specimen of the hull steel of
titanic to find out the brittleness of it.

• The wrought iron was found to be very

brittle as compared to the steel specimen .
• The wrought iron rivets that fastened the hull plates
to the Titanic's main structure also failed because
of brittle fracture from the high impact loading of
the collision with the iceberg and the low
temperature water on the night of the disaster.

• With the ship travelling at nearly 25 mph, the

contact with the iceberg was probably a series of
impacts that caused the rivets to fail either in shear
or by elongation.

• . Normally, the rivets would have deformed before

failing because of their ductility, but with water
temperatures below freezing, the rivets had become
extremely brittle.
DESIGN FLAWS….

• Along with the material failures, poor design

of the watertight compartments in the
Titanic's lower section was a factor in the
disaster.

• The lower section of the Titanic was divided

into sixteen major watertight compartments,
after the collision with the iceberg, the hull
portion of six of these sixteen
compartments was damaged.
• The watertight compartments contributed to
the disaster by keeping the flood waters in
the bow of the ship. If there had been no
compartments at all, the incoming water
would have spread out, and the Titanic
would have remained horizontal.

• Eventually, the ship would have sunk, but

she would have remained afloat for another
six hours before foundering.
The sinking
Exact reason for sinking
 Timeline of the Sinking of the
Titanic [Gannon, 1995].

• 11:35 p.m. Lookouts spot the iceberg 1/4 mile ahead.

• 11:40 The Titanic sideswipes the iceberg, damaging
nearly 300 feet of the hull.
• Midnight Watertight compartments are filling; water
begins to spill over the tops of the transverse bulkheads.
• 1:20 a.m. The bow pitches; water floods through anchor-
chain holes.
• 2:00 The bow continues to submerge; propellers lift out
of the water.
• 2:10 The Titanic tilts 45 degrees or more; the
upper structure steel disintegrates.
• 2:12 The stern raises up out of the water; the bow,
filling with water, grows heavier.
• 2:18 Weighing 16,000 tons, the bow rips loose; the
stern rises to almost vertical.
• 2:20 The stern slips beneath the surface.
• 2:29 Coasting at about 13 mph, the bow strikes
the ocean floor.
• 2:56 Falling at about 4 mph, the stern strikes the
ocean floor.
composition of materials
Table I. The Composition of Steels from the Titanic, a Lock Gate, and ASTM A36 Steel

C Mn P S Si Cu O N MnS: Ratio
Titanic Hull Plate 0.21 0.47 0.045 0.069 0.017 0.024 0.013 0.0035 6.8:1
Lock Gate* 0.25 0.52 0.01 0.03 0.02 — 0.018 0.0035 17.3:1
ASTM A36 0.20 0.55 0.012 0.037 0.007 0.01 0.079 0.0032 14.9:1
•NICKEL (Ni)
• As the properties of nickel say that when added to
steel increases its toughness even at low
temperatures .

• As nickel was missing in the materials being used

in the manufacturing of Titanic , due to low
temperature in the surroundings the materials
failed .

• And hence the use of Nickel would had made the

ship to float for longer period.
Was Titanic's steel to blame for her demise?

•Many combining factors led to the magnitude of

Titanic's disaster at sea, including lack of lifeboats,
flaws in the design of the ship and negligence of the
crew.

• One factor that we can accurately evaluate with

today’s technology is the quality of steel that was
used for the Titanic, and if any shortcuts were taken
during construction that may have contributed to the
disastrous event.
• All three million of Titanic's rivets were driven by
hand.

• Wrought iron is an Iron Alloy with a very

low carbon (0.1 to 0.25%) content in contrast
to cast iron (2.1% to 4%), and has fibrous
inclusions, known as slag up to 2% by
weight.
 If it would had been 2012 instead of

1912
• If it would had been 2012 instead of 1912 about a
Century after, then the failure of material wouldn’t
had took place with the use of Modern steels.

• Even the techniques of riveting the hull plates would

had been replaced by new techniques of Welding .

• The materials being used would also had been

replaced by new composite materials , which would
had satisfy the properties required.
Conclusion

• The steel used in constructing the Titanic was

probably the best plain carbon ship plate available
in the period of 1909 to 1911, but it would not be
acceptable at the present time for any construction
purposes and particularly not for ship construction.

• Whether a ship constructed of modern steel would

have suffered as much damage as the Titanic .
THANK YOU….