In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic’s Doom

NY Times ^ | April 15, 2008 | WILLIAM J. BROAD

[Pharmboy]

Titanic, left, and Olympic sat next to one another in a double gantry in the last photo of the two together,
weeks before Olympic set sail

Researchers have discovered that the builder of the Titanic struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago Tuesday.

The builder’s own archives, two scientists say, harbor evidence of a deadly mix of low quality rivets and lofty ambition as the builder labored to construct the three biggest ships in the world at once — the Titanic and two sisters, the Olympic and the Britannic.

For a decade, the scientists have argued that the storied liner went down fast after hitting an iceberg because the ship’s builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in. More than 1,500 people died.

When the safety of the rivets was first questioned 10 years ago, the builder ignored the accusation and said it did not have an archivist who could address the issue.

Now, historians say new evidence uncovered in the archive of the builder, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, settles the argument and finally solves the riddle of one of the most famous sinkings of all time. The company says the findings are deeply flawed.

Each of the great ships under construction required three million rivets that acted like glue to hold everything together. In a new book, the scientists say the shortages peaked during the Titanic’s construction.

[exit82]

We know the rivets themselves were not at fault. The sister ship Olympic sailed the seas for 24 years with the same iron rivets in the bow and stern. The Britannic, of the same construction sailed until 1916 when it was sunk by a mine.

The iceberg did the damage. Would it have made a difference it there were steel rivets instead of iron? Was the brittle steel in the hull plates a factor?

We may never know. All we do know is that a fast moving ship hit an iceberg, the bulk of which was unseen underwater. Icebergs are ice and that’s a tough material. The force of impact pushed the plates in or tore them. Perhaps no rivets could have held at that point.

Regardless, the faulty bulkheads and the lack of lifeboats doomed the 1500 people who died. The ship did not sink right away, and there was plenty of time for an orderly evacution had there been enough lifeboats.

Above all, the Titanic is a lesson that humans are fallible, and anything they build, no matter how big, can be destroyed.

[Dilbert56]

Rosie!

Step away from the keyboard with your hands in plain sight.

[Red_Devil 232]

I have heard the “brittle steal” theory also. May be a combination of the two.

[reagan_fanatic]

Rosie - is that you?

[Jimmy Valentine]

What the article does not address is that the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic, was built in the same yard of the same material. She survived two collisions, the First World War and remained in service until about 1936.

I think that the correct answer is that sailing at about 25 land miles per hour into an object of almost 30 or 40 times your mass (or larger) is always pretty much a bad idea.

[xp38]

Hold onto your hat...Lindy made it too

[RDasher]

The assumption that the bow would be a low stress seems to have derived from analysis of the bending moments on the hull. What the designers failed to envision, however, was a massive impact load to the bow, such as was caused by the iceberg collision.

I am thinking that the designers were not considering collisions with huge icebergs. Such a ship would most likely not float.

[jrushing]

The Olympic also suffered a collision, with the warship H.M.S. Hawke, on Sept. 20, 1911. A photograph taken by Harland & Wolff shows extensive damage, including open rivet holes, which suggest that the Olympic was also built with substandard rivets. After repairs, however, the Olympic had a long career, until 1935, and was even nicknamed Old Reliable.

From slide 5 of the slideshow linked in the article, you can see holes where rivets were popped-out.

[houstonman58]

"You know, I did some experiments out in my garage with some ice cubes from the refrigerator and an old fender from a ‘64 Chevy, and try as I might, I could not get those ice cubes to break that fender. Even when I went down to the party supply and got a 50 pound block of ice, I still could not do more than dent it."

LOL, good post. It seems everyone out there is looking for somebody to blame whenever an accident or disaster occurs. It's probably a mentality that the greedy lawyers have fostered; they see criminal negligence, (a lawyers pot of gold), underneath every tragedy or human suffering. For example, it didn't take long for people to begin blaming the engineers of the Twin Towers for not designing the buildings to stand up to a jumbo jet attack. I expect one day to see the victims' families start a class action law suit against the architects, engineers and builders of the Towers. It's the American way.

[wagglebee]

If you read the rest of the article, it addresses that Olympic sailed for decades without major incident.

However, with things like this, it is the WAY the structure of the rivets fail (you notice that the iron rivets are only on certain portions of the ship), other impacts might not have had the same effect. It sounds as if the collision with the iceberg was going to sink Titanic no matter what, but it was the catastrophic failure of the rivets AFTER the collision that caused it to sink so quickly.

[TC Rider]

Helen of Thomas, the face that launched a .001 ship.

(a nano-helen)

[gridlock]

But the rivets were not substandard. The rivets were, in all likelyhood, exactly what the designers expected them to be and behaved predictably.

The problem was with the assumption that loads on the bow could be counted on to be low. All of the subsequent failures can be traced back to that design assumption. To say the rivets were substandard or faulty obscures that point and ensures that the lesson will not be learned.

[exit82]

What I am saying is that in any collision of the magnitude described both for the Olympic in 1911 and the Titanic in 1912, the force of impact is enough to buckle steel plates to the point of rivet failure.

If the rivets were substandard, a ship like the Olympic could not sail through water for a quarter of a century without a failing bow or stern. In normal service, the rivets performed adequately.

Think Andrea Doria in 1956. When it collided with the Stockholm are we to blame the damage on faulty rivets or welding? Materials have strength limits. Ship collisions of any kind are going to result in damage, no different than automobile collisons produce damage.

To say that “faulty” rivets caused the Titanic to sink is a gross inaccuracy. To say it may have been one of the factors is more accurate. But even in the hierarchy of factors, there were far more important factors that created the final scenario than the rivets.

[McBuff]

Coffee spew!! LOL

[jwparkerjr]

Wouldn't you think the freezing temperature of the water would have adversely affected the steel in the hull? Steel that might be fine at 70 degrees centigrade could be like glass at 0 degrees or so.

My dad was a riveter in the days before WWII. It was quite a job back then. It took a crew of several to drive rivets and it definitely a man's work, at least for the ones used in warships. After his passing I was going through some of his things and came across some letters of recommendation that had been written for him at the end of the war. Seems he and his crew held several records for driving the most rivets in an eight-hour shift. I remember him coming home from work and being really dirty and sweaty. It also cost him most of his hearing in later life.

Thanks for the memories!

[popdonnelly]

Some lawyer will bring a lawsuit.

[andy58-in-nh]

[DuncanWaring]

...sailing at about 25 land miles per hour into an object of almost 30 or 40 times your mass (or larger) is always pretty much a bad idea.

Commander Kevin Mooney, USN would undoubtedly agree with you.

[Abathar]

Exactly correct, the fact that the stresses would tend to be shear forces and not direct would tend to favor the hole in the side of the ship would have followed the seams of the plating.

The ragged tear indicates the plating is what failed IMHO, had the splits gone vertical up the side of the ship or even horizontal as it followed the plating seams allowing then to move as individual pieces then immediatly the rivets would have come into question.

I believe it is a theory worth looking into, but I would not hang my hat on it without a lot more research. After the sulfur and calcium contaminated steel that has been recovered was shown to be so brittle at that temperature I do believe it would have gone down with even the strongest rivets.

[jrushing]

This
But the rivets were not substandard. The rivets were, in all likelyhood, exactly what the designers expected them to be and behaved predictably.

And this,
What I am saying is that in any collision of the magnitude described both for the Olympic in 1911 and the Titanic in 1912, the force of impact is enough to buckle steel plates to the point of rivet failure. If the rivets were substandard, a ship like the Olympic could not sail through water for a quarter of a century without a failing bow or stern. In normal service, the rivets performed adequately.

Are both likely true. It probably didn't matter if the rivets were steel or iron when that collision happened. Prior to the rivet theory, they thought the brittle steel cracked on impact.