108
Metallurgy and the
Titanic disaster
by John Newnham
Fastener Specialist, Confederation of British Metalforming
It is nearly 100 years since the Titanic disaster, but that has not diminished the worldwide interest in
anything to do with it. In the first half of 2008, there were notices in the newspapers about a new book
that claims that the poor quality of rivets used in the making of the Titanic was the main reason that the
ship sank so quickly. The book is titled “What Really Sank the Titanic”, and was written by two American
researchers, Timothy Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty. The book also prompted a 90 minute television
documentary, shown in the UK by Channel 4 last November, in which McCarty played a prominent part.
Dr Timothy Foecke has been involved ‘Britannic’, each of which needed about three wreck showed a transition temperature of over
with researching the metallurgical aspects of million rivets, so inferior fasteners were used 30˚C, so they would have been relatively
the tragedy for over ten years, almost since for expedience. This claim has been disputed brittle at normal temperatures. But with the
the first pieces of the ship were brought to by Harland and Wolff, the shipbuilders who sea temperature being at -2˚C at the time of
the surface. He is a metallurgist with the US built the Titanic all those years ago, saying that the disaster, it is believed that this phenomenon
National Institute of Standards and Technology, the use of various grades of rivets was probably was responsible for the plates on the Titanic in
which has been associated with most of the intentional because of the way that ships were contact with the iceberg cracking and
metallurgical investigations on this topic, so made at that time. This is not the only fracturing, rather than deforming by bending.
you have to take his theories seriously. Rivets metallurgical problem that has been Modern steels have a transition temperature of
that have been retrieved from the wreck have identified with the Titanic. Most of the -25˚C or better, but such steel was not available
been analysed by these researchers, and it has metallurgical information published about the in the early 1900s, and there is every reason
been found that they were made of wrought Titanic before last year focused on the steel to believe that the best available steels were
iron, but with a very large slag content, almost plates used, surmising that the properties of employed in the building of the ships.
10%, which would have a major effect on the steel were the cause of the rapid sinking. After the disaster, there were many
mechanical performance. It is surmised that Several papers published around 1998 to 2000 improvements made to the way that ships
such rivets would fracture prematurely under claimed that the steels used in the skin of the were built and operated, to try to avoid any
the stresses imposed in the collision with the ship were not capable of withstanding impacts possibility of a similar event. Some of these
iceberg. at very low temperatures. Samples of steel were engineering changes, and some were
The rivets were being used at a time of plate had been recovered from the ship, and purely operational. The metallurgical
transition in the shipbuilding industry from when they were tested, they showed a severe discoveries came much later and while the
wrought iron to steel rivets, and the better loss of toughness at low temperatures. This is theory about the rivets is interesting, it has to
steel rivets were used in the mid-sections the “ductile-brittle transition” in steels, which be kept in context. The sister ship ‘Olympic’
of the ship. The researchers believe that the was not known about until the mid-1900s. was retired from service after almost 25 years
shipbuilders had difficulty sourcing enough Steels that are quite tough and durable at of operation, and was built at the same time
high quality rivets, because they were building normal temperatures become brittle like glass as the Titanic, using the same specification
three similar ships simultaneously, the Titanic at low temperatures. In the case of the Titanic, materials. The main difference is that it didn’t
and its sister ships, the ‘Olympic’ and the tests on the steel plates recovered from the hit an iceberg!
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