The TitanicDue: October 28, 2004Fall 2004GMST 512The Creation:The Irish ship building company, Harland and Wolff, began laying the keelon a new ship in March 1909, which would rival any of the ships in the AtlanticFerry route. Lord William James Pierre, who was the managing director andcontrolling chair of Harland and Wolff, designed and built what was consideredthe largest, most luxurious, and unsinkable ship, the Titanic. The Belfast shipyardhad to be rebuild in order to accommodate the construction of the Titanic and its
sister ship, “Olympic”. Instead of having three areas to build, it was redesigned to
hold only two larger boats.The Titanic was designed with a double bottomed hull that was dividedinto sixteen presumably water tight compartments. If the hull was damaged, four
compartments could be flooded without endangering the ship‟s buoyancy. This
would keep the ship from sinking if it every hit an iceberg or other large item outat sea.To help in keep the ship unsinkable were watertight doors that were
installed on the Titanic. The doors were “held in the open position by a suitable
friction clutch, which can be instantly released by means of a powerful electro-magnet controlled from the captains bridge, so that in the event of an accident, orat any time when it may be considered advisable, the captain can, by simplymoving an electric switch, instantly close the doors throughout and making the
vessel practically unsinkable.” Also, the material that was used to create the shi
pwas the best plain carbon ship plate available at the time of construction.
The Sinking:Just before midnight on April 14, 19112, the Titanic collided with aniceberg. Five compartments were ruptured, which put the ship over its limit forflooded compartments. This fifth compartment was the cause of the sinking of theship. At two-twenty am on April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank completely to thebottom of the ocean.In the 1997 Discovery Channel documentary called:
Titanic Anatomy of a Disaster
, forensic scientists conducted tests on pieces of the steel plate and
rivets obtained from the Titanic‟s hull and other structural pieces of the ship.
During the metallurgical analysis of the materials, a large amount of silicate slagwas found. This is a type of glass that makes steel very brittle. This means thatthe negative two degree Celsius water temperature in the North Atlantic helpedto cause the steel to crake during the impact with the iceberg. It was also foundthat the rivets included the silicate slag which would make them very likely tohave the heads snap off upon impact.At the time of construction, the builders used what they thought was top ofthe line steel. They were unaware that the elemental properties of the steel wereof poor quality. The brittle steel was created in acid-lined open-hearth furnaces,which allowed for impurities in the steel by Dalzell and D. Colvilles and Company.Until 1947, steel was created in this manner. This was when closer examinations
due to war were warranted. The builders of the Titanic can not be blamed forscientific information that was not discovered at the time.The physics of the Titanic also played a role in her untimely demise. At thetime of the collision with the iceberg, the Titanic was traveling at twenty twoknots, or twenty five miles per hour. This speed was too fast for the size of theship. There was not enough time between the time that the iceberg was seen forthe ship to stop or even turn off course enough to avoid hitting the berg.The Results:As a result of the fateful night of April 15, 1912, approximately onethousand five hundred people lost their lives in the icy Atlantic. More would have
been lost if the Cunard liner “Carpathia” has not arrived only one hour and twe
nty
minutes after the Titanic‟s sinking. This ship was able to save many of Titanic‟s
passengers left afloat in the water.Most articles or stories you hear about the Titanic blame the loss of life onthe lack of life boats. Yes, it is true that the Titanic only had enough life boats tohold one thousand, one hundred seventy eight people when there were twothousand two hundred and twenty four people aboard the night of the sinking.However, there were other factors that aided in the disaster. One in particularwas that more people on the ship could have been saved by the Leyland line
“Californian” which was less than twenty miles away, but since the radio operator
was not on duty, he did not receive the distress signals.Due to the engineering failures of the Titanic and other indisputable issuesat sea, several rules and regulations were implemented for ocean transportation.Every ship is required to have enough life boat space for everyone on board.Ships must also hold drills to explain to its passengers what to do in case of an
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