6 Marine Engineering Titanic Engineering Failure & Human Error

Transcription

6 Marine Engineering Titanic Engineering Failure & Human Error
Engineering Failure & Human Error
6 Marine Engineering
b. The Titanic Sinking – Apr. 10, 1912
On Board
Saved
Save
.
Lost
Passengers.
Wom.
Child
Men
Total
Wom.
Child.
Men
Total
Wom
Child
Men
Total
-
1st Class
156
173
329
145
54
199
11
119
130
60%
2nd Class
128
157
285
104
15
119
24
142
166
42%
3rd Class
224
476
710
105
69
174
119
417
536
25%
Total
508
816
1,324
354
138
492
154
678
832
37%
Crew
23
876
899
20
194
214
3
682
685
24%
Total
531
1,692
2,223
374
332
706
157
1,360 1,517
32%
Engineering Failure & Human Error
Bibliography
‘The Titanic Disaster Hearings’, Tom Kuntz (Pocket 1998)
ISBN-10: 0671025538
ISBN-13: 978-0671025533
‘Titanic: Destination Disaster’, John P. Eaton, Charles A. Haas
(W. W. Norton 1996)
ISBN-10: 0393315134
ISBN-13: 978-0393315134
'The Titanic Story: Hard Choices, Dangerous Decisions’,
Stephen D. Cox (Open Court 1999)
ISBN-10: 0812693965
ISBN-13: 978-0812693966
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic
http://www.csititanic.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9801/Felkins-9801.html
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
The headlines
Apr. 16, 1912
RMS Titanic
The maiden voyage
Engineering Failure & Human Error
The age of the big liners
At the beginning of the 20th century ocean travel was big
business. The demand for fast trans-Atlantic mail and parcel
delivery and cheap ‘steerage’ berths for immigrants added to the
profits from 1st and 2nd Class luxury accommodation on board.
The Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania entered service in
1907 and held the ‘Blue Riband’ for the fastest Atlantic crossing.
The White Star liners Olympic and Titanic were designed to
compete with the Cunard ships. They were appreciably larger but
lacked the speed and manoeuvrability of the Cunard vessels.
The Cunard ships had steam turbines, quadruple screws and a
balanced rudder, and gave marine engineering what the jet
engine, 50 years later, gave aeronautical engineering.
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
Just how big was the Titanic?
Engineering Failure & Human Error
The history of the RMS Olympic & Titanic
The White Star company prospered from sailing vessels taking
emigrants to Australia, but recognized the potential of the growing
Atlantic trade: emigrants leaving Europe, with cargos of sugar,
tobacco, cotton and wheat for Europe from the Americas.
Harland & Wolff shipyards (Belfast, N. Ireland) undertook design
and construction of a series of vessels for White Star:
Brittanic, Germanic, Teutonic, Majestic and Oceanic (1890).
White Star joined the mercantile empire of American financier
John Pierpoint Morgan in 1902, although the ships continued to
fly the British flag and employ British officers and crews.
Celtic (1901), Cedric (1903), Baltic (1904) and Adriatic (1907)
were built for White Star, to be followed by three giant liners:
Olympic, Titanic and Gigantic (never built).
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
The building of the RMS Titanic
The Harland &
Wolff design used
riveted steel plate
with about
3,000,000 rivets.
Engineering Failure & Human Error
1st Class life on board Titanic
Oceanic dining saloon
Joseph Bruce Ismay
White Star Chairman
& Managing Director
Olympic 1st Class cabin
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
Four weaknesses of the RMS Titanic
The rudder
The rivets
The iceberg
The captain
Engineering Failure & Human Error
What happened?
10 Apr. Titanic leaves Southampton for New York via Cherbourg and Ireland
10-14 Apr. Speed increased to 21.5 knots (40 Km/hr.) as more turbines started
12 Apr. Warnings received of icebergs on the planned route
14 Apr. Water temp. -2C. 23.40 Crow’s nest lookout Fredrick Fleet sights iceberg
and reports to bridge. First Officer William Murdoch orders turn to starboard.
Ship’s designer, Thomas Andrews, informs Captain that pumps are inadequate
15 Apr. 02.20 Vessel breaks in two and sinks with 1,517 passengers and crew
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
The rescue ships
The Cunard steamer Carpathia arrived just after 4am and took
705 survivors on board, but the Leyland steamer, Californian,
only arrived after sunrise, although initially closer to the scene
Carpathia
Californian
Lifeboat photographed
from the Carpathia
Engineering Failure & Human Error
Good & bad guys
The Boss
The American press held Joseph Bruce Ismay, White Star
Chairman and Managing Director, responsible for the
disaster, perhaps because he survived the sinking
The Captain
Commodore Edward J. Smith failed to slow the ship after
receiving ice warnings and allowed lifeboats to leave
partially filled. He was responsible for at least 500
unnecessary deaths. But he ‘went down with his ship’,
and this made him a hero for the American press
The Board of Trade
Regulations written for smaller ships (up to 10,000 gross registered
tonnage) required 16 lifeboats, totally inadequate for the 46,329 ton
Titanic and the 3,511 maximum complement of passengers and crew
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
Design faults & materials failures
The Olympic and the Titanic were the jumbo jets of the commercial liner
market. They were based on British experience of cruiser and battleship
design, but still incorporated concepts derived from sailing ship design
In 1985 the wreck of the Titanic was discovered at a depth of
3,700m, spread over 600m of the sea floor,. Some answers to
outstanding questions about the accident then became possible
Two theories have been proposed to explain the extreme vulnerability
of the Titanic structure on impact with the iceberg :
1. Brittle failure of the ship’s plate due to the impact, the low ambient
temperature and the high chevron-notch transition temperature
2. Poor strength of the enormous number of wrought iron rivets used to
assemble the sections of the ship by manual riveting.
Engineering Failure & Human Error
The extent of the impact damage
The area of primary damage is buried some 17m beneath the mud and
was only accessible by sonar imaging. However a picture was built up
showing that the grazing impact with the iceberg had ripped several
tears in the hull that extended from the forepeak to the #5 boiler room
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
Composition of Titanic 1” ship’s plate from three independent
investigations and compared with a modern standard
Engineering Failure & Human Error
Toughness of Titanic 1” ship’s plate
Mixed fracture at 0C
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
So why blame the rivets?
The Olympic sister ship
experienced collision
damage (1911) in which
wrought iron rivets
popped out but extensive
plate ductility in bending
was observed.
Rivets recovered from
the Titanic contained
many silicate stringers
and showed signs of
corrosion cracking under
residual stresses due to
the riveting process
Engineering Failure & Human Error
Some Conclusions
1. Ambition, overconfidence and national
pride resulted in a major tragedy
2. The design of the White Star ships was
poor compared to that of the Cunard liners
3. The Titanic lacked manoeuvrability and
was ill-equipped for an emergency
4. The Titanic Captain was more concerned
with his image than with his passengers
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
More Conclusions
1. Government safety regulations had not
considered giant liners of this size
2. This gigantic ship was travelling too fast
to have avoided the collision
3. Brittle failure of the steel was probably
not important, but could have been
4. The rivets were probably the weakest
link in the construction of the ship
Engineering Failure & Human Error
Some Questions
1. How have social norms for mass travel
changed over the past 100 years?
2. Are the gigantic Caribbean cruise ships
the real successors of the Titanic?
3. What are the major advances in plain
carbon steel technology since Titanic?
4. The Captain ‘died like a hero’, but how
did he perform before his death?
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Engineering Failure & Human Error
More Questions
1. The ship was considered ‘almost unsinkable’. Why?
2. The lifeboats were sufficient for 1,178. Should we
blame the ‘regulations’?
3. Why did welded structures ultimately replace rivets
in ship construction?
4. Compare the trans-Atlantic trade in 1912 with the
Zim and other freight business.
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