Titanic Breaking In Two

[Aaron2010]

Do you think the hull stresses were sufficient enough to break the ship in two or do you think it was caused by something else? I am reading more evidence which suggests the break up occurred very early and the bridge was not yet submerged, and how the break up was caused by the enormous expulsion of air. How much air pressure would be required to rip open a side plating or crack apart a wooden deck? Could an empty coal bunker or sealed compartment burst open? There were reports of metal bending due to air pressure from survivors in the first stages of the sinking. Also survivor Charles Stengel said:

"I imagined that the decks had blown up with the pressure, pulling the boat down, bow on, this heavyweight, and the air between the decks; that is my theory of the explosion. I do not know whether it is correct or not, but I do not think it was the boilers. I think it was the pressure, that heavy weight shoving that down, the water rushing up, and the air coming between the decks, something had to go."

I think it must have been the expulsion of air because ships like the Lusitania and the Britannic also had their sterns suspended above the water but neither broke, bent or buckled due to the stress of their weight.




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[VW1956]

Hello Aaron. I always thought the break up started at the expansion joint and once too much of the stern came out of the water the ship was not designed to take that much strain. Had there been no expansion joint I could well belive there would have been no break up. Also if Titanic was still on the surface I cant see that there would be much pressure inside the ship too do much damage. You mention that Britannic had her stern suspended above the water and she did not break up. But didn't Britannic have extra hull plating which could have made her twice as strong. Just an idea. Ken.

[Atlantic1912]

Hi Aaron, I do think the ship had already begun to break by the time the bridge was submerged.

As for the Lusitania and Britannic, I think you must take into account that both ships sank at a mostly shallow angle and much quicker than the Titanic did; had both stayed afloat as long as Titanic they may have exhibited signs of stress damage. Lusitania did have a break in the hull near the third funnel but this probably ocurred on impact with the bottom. Both sank more quickly than Titanic, and it is amazing Titanic lasted as long in comparison.

Of course Titanic did not have a huge hole in the hull like the Britannic and Lusitania.

[Aaron2010]

According to the survivors the propellers were above the water when she broke but her bridge was not yet submerged. So she looked like this.




I don't think the stresses on the hull were critical at that point. The weight of the engines were not in a position yet to pull the stern back. I think something gave way and there was an enormous volume of air trying to escape, it may have burst open her side or straight up through the aft expansion joint. The wireless operator could not hear because of the noise of the escaping air coming up the forward expansion joint. I wonder if it later applied to the aft expansion joint but at a much greater 'explosive' rate? Survivors said when the ship broke there were enormous amounts of black smoke and coal shooting into the air. e.g.

Philip Mock
"After the noise I saw a huge column of black smoke slightly lighter than the sky rising high into the sky and then flattening out at the top like a mushroom."

Fred Barrett
"When the ship was sinking a volume of smoke came up."

Frank Osman
"She exploded, broke in halves.....You could see the explosions by the smoke coming right up the funnels. It was all black, looked like as if it was lumps of coal, and all that....pretty big lumps. I do not know what it was. I never seen no water; only the steam and very black smoke."



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[Atlantic1912]

I think some of what they saw may have been caused by the main steam line failing, however I don't see "air" in itself as being enough to propel coal into the air at the reported height. No that was probably something from further inside, I have always wondered if the uptakes to funnel three were not filling with steam from the flooding boilers during the break, but then the uptakes should have been damaged enough to allow anything coming through them to rise into the air through the breaking decks.

That still seems doubtful that enough could seep though the decks and out the break unless it was a large volume and under pressure, as for air alone being the cause of break, I don't think that alone was capable of breaking the hull, afterall portholes were open, glass should break much easier than steel and if that was the case then the grand staircase dome should have broken outward from the ship, doors would be flying open, etc. If the pressure was that bad you would think people would have noted an increase in the half hour to hour before it broke. Maybe in some areas right near the break (after it was mostly over) the water was forcing air through doors and windows with enough force do damage wood, not certain about steel plating.

However when the two halves of the ship parted the air remaining in the location of the break would be forced out and escape, that combined with steam might have been the cause of what they saw.

[Atlantic1912]

Another thing, where did this coal come from? The boilers (as I would expect) or the coal bunkers?

If the former then it would be steam from the flooding boilers, if the latter then the air would have been forced through the boiler rooms; or even perhaps from below them.

I would expect the flooding of the boilers would have produced steam in the boiler rooms, and that a boiler flooded would force steam from the hot coals up the funnel uptakes, air (not steam) though could have been forced through the flooding watertight compartments or from the floor below them.

[Atlantic1912]

Hi Aaron, One other factor to think about, buoyancy. The forward part of the bow had none while the stern still did, of course not all the ship's weight was distributed on the length of the stern due to the angle the ship assumed. So you have the water acting as a fulcrum right around the "break" area, was it the weight of the bow or the unsupported weight of the stern or something else, who knows what caused the stresses that created the break, but we know what drove it until it was in two pieces.

Now we must decide if the bow really did not have buoyancy, the lower hull and decks were flooded/flooding; did the remaining unflooded decks preserve a small amount of buoyancy as far forward as funnel two or even one? Air could come into play there.

[Jason Jr.]

I think the design did it in, as its the one of the first 800ft+ vessels ever made. Other ships held a similar 90ft width and likely the near full additional of 100ft added more strain to the keel and joint regions. At the time, the building standards weren't tested at that length and only had prior ship parameters in mind. The joints of her sister ships were re-enforced by then, so they probably wouldn't have problems in sinking by the forward or aft-end intact under the same conditions.

[Aaron2010]

I think there was a large air pocket deep in the ship and when she reached a certain depth, it blew her side open. According to the Titanic inquiry the pressure can greatly intensify if the ship suddenly rolls over to one side. A few weeks after the disaster the New York Tribune said this:

'H. T. Aldrich, publisher of 'Maritime Engineering' who is familiar with steamship construction was of the opinion that if the terrific pressure of water at a depth of 30 feet would have helped break her up. He said "Another point which few people realize is the explosive effect of the suddenly compressed air in the compartments." He then described an experience were two steamers collided and one of them he described, "the air inside was compressed so suddenly that the battened-down hatches on the deck blew 150 feet into the air. The air had to get out somewhere."

Titanic survivor Edward Buley saw the same thing:

Q - Do you know when the water began to come into the ship?
A - Yes, sir; a little after she struck. You could hear it.
Q - Immediately?
A - You could hear it immediately. Down where we were, there was a hatchway, right down below, and there was a tarpaulin across it, with an iron batten. You could hear the water rushing in, and the pressure of air underneath it was such that you could see this bending. In the finish I was told it blew off.
Q - What part of the ship would you call that?
A - The forecastle head.


If a bulkhead later gave way, the air expulsion could have been enormous. Wasn't there one or two boiler rooms still active and feeding the power for the electric lighting?


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[ardtornish]

Think beer can Aaron!

Those of us who can remember, will recall immensely strong beer cans when they first were marketed. Then as now, when you shake the can, immense pressure is set up inside the can... it does not burst the can. By the same token; air pressure on it's own could never have burst open the side of Titanic. If anyone saw the side 'burst open', that person must have been close to a point between Funnels 3 and 4 and in one of thre aft, lifeboats. 11, 13, 15 or 12, 14, 16.

The fact that the cargo hatch covers ballooned was due to air being displaced. In 1912, cargo hatch covers were made with wood boards covered by three layers of canvass. There were little spaces between the boards. The iron batten Burley talked about was a hatch cover strap.. about 2 inches wide x 30 feet and .25 inches thick. It would bend itself if yu lifted it at one end!
The sea water pressure at 30 feet deep is 13.3 lbs / sqare inch..hardly enough to bend a beer can!

When a compartment is flooded, the water will enter it until all the air is expelled or the pressure of remaining air is equal to the pressure of the outside water. In the case of engine room spaces; water would enter and the displaced air would be forced through doors, ventilators and upper bunker hatches as well as escape hatches above the WT bulkheads; it would not be trapped. The sudden expuslsion of air experienced by Lightoller was due to a huge volume of sea water pouring down the engine room fidley hatches and vents in front of funnel No.1. It trapped a 'bubble' of air which had not had time to be dispalced in the normal, gradual way. It was the 'bubble' welling up from the No. 5 and 6 boiler rooms which expelled Lightoller.
As for the coal: If there was any in the upper bunkers above Boiler rooms 1 and 2, it would be liberated when the ship fractured from top to bottom.. much in ths same was as was the barber's pole!
Since all the fires were drawn: where did the 'sparks' come from? perhaps parting electric cabes?

Ard.

[Aaron2010]

I thought one or two boiler rooms were still being manned and had to remain active in order to keep the lights on. Survivors saw heavy black smoke and sparks shooting out of the funnel / funnels. Could it have been red hot coals from these boiler rooms? What would happen if a bulkhead collapsed and the cold water roared back and pushed compressed hot air or steam against a trapped / sealed compartment? Would it burst through the upper decks? The noise of the escaping steam was so bad that Captain Smith gave an order to the Chief Engineer to stop it. We don't know how he stopped it or what exactly the order was, but soon afterwards the steam was not being vented out and the boiler rooms were filling up with hot steam. Does hot steam get hotter and hotter when it is compressed? If a forward bulkhead collapsed you would have gallons of cold water roaring back and coming into contact with boiling compressed steam. Surely that must be an explosive cocktail?

I'm thinking of this clip. At 1:38

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtTMrVn3pMA



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[VW1956]

Hello. This is odd writing and reading on the halloween wall. Just had a thought. The weight of the drive shafts certainly helped the break-up. Dont know what they weighed but must be the heaviest items on the ship given that they were solid metal and very long. Ken.

[ardtornish]

Hello there!

Aaron:

You are right about the need for steam to keep the generator turning but the major part of the steam was vented through the funnels and all but the essential fires would have been drawn.
They also needed steam to drive the bilge pumps which would be running for as long as they were of use. In fact, they were only able to buy a little extra time.
The amount of steam required for these two purposes was very small.. one boiler would have supplied enough!
Free steam vapour (it would become pressure vapour as soon as it escaped from the enclosed system of boilers, cylinders and associated piping) would exit the engine rooms and boiler room spaces in the same way as would air... no explosion or HP build-up... even with a collapsed bulkhead (which was almost inpossible!)

Ken:

The prop drive shafts were contained within stern tubes at there after ends and supported along their entire lengths by bearings in bearing stools located at regular intervals. Additionally; they passed through 4 WT bulkheads. So you can see that the weight of each shaft was fully supported and distributed throughout the structure of the ship.
The greatest concentration of localised machinery weight would be in the area occupied by the two triple expansion engines and the turbine engine. In fact, between Fr 28 and Fr60 aft of the center line.. a distance of 96 feet... the hull was beefed-up transversely in the area under these engines... lots of extra steel which included heavy section engine beds. In pictures I've seen; the bottom of the ship fractured transversely between Fr. 28 just forward of the main engines and about Fr.18. This area of ship's bottom ( 30 x 90 Ft.) probably corresponds to the piece of DB found to the NE of the main wreckage.

Ard.

[Atlantic1912]

Hi Ard, what do you make of the coal that was reportedly flying into the air? Or was it something else?

[Mark Chirnside]

Welcome aboard, Jason.

I think the design did it in, as its the one of the first 800ft+ vessels ever made. Other ships held a similar 90ft width and likely the near full additional of 100ft added more strain to the keel and joint regions.

Titanic's proportions were by no means unusual. There is no problem in having a longer ship, provided that is borne in mind during construction and adequate compensation is provided within the design. In terms of the length to breadth ratio, it was 9.58 to 1 in Titanic's case, slightly less than Adriatic's. The second Majestic, built as Bismarck prior to the war, was 956 ft long and 100 ft breadth, giving a neat 9.56 to 1 ratio. If memory serves, Oceanic (1899) was more than 10 to 1. Other White Star liners built by Harland & Wolff were similarly constructed and enjoyed decades of reliable service. Titanic was not, in proportion, exceptionally long for a ship of her width.

The joints of her sister ships were re-enforced by then, so they probably wouldn't have problems in sinking by the forward or aft-end intact under the same conditions.

Ships aren't designed to founder. In that sense, it makes no difference whether one founders intact or not.

It isn't the case that either Olympic or Britannic's expansion joints were reinforced. The original expansion joint configuration served Olympic fairly well over a period of a quarter of a century. Yes, improvements were made to future ships as a normal part of progressive marine engineering, but in that Harland & Wolff were aware of improvements that could be made in March 1912, in all likelihood this was one of Britannic's chanegs that originated from experience with Olympic in 1911 and early 1912. See:
http://www.markchirnside.co.uk/Olympic- ... _myth.html

Kind regards,

Mark.