The Break-up of Titanic

On April 15th, 1912, Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg. It broke in two leaving the bow and stern sections of the ship nearly
2000 feet apart on the ocean floor. How did the ship break such that the wreck appears as we find it today? Popular conjecture
theorizes that the ship broke from the top down, usually centering the break on the aft expansion joint. It may be more probable that
the cause of the break-up occurred bottom-up, resulting from the buckling of the keel.

The bow section still resembles the original ship but the stern section appears devastated. An explanation of the break requires
determining a sequence of events that will lead to the current condition of the stern.

As a preface, consider breaking a stick and a structure like a cardboard tube. The solid stick will break top-down. The cardboard tube
will collapse on the bottom and bend the sides outward before it tears. The Titanic has more in common with the tube than a stick.

I'll reference two recent works featured on the television special "Titanic: Anatomy of a Disaster". One is the finite element
simulation of stresses to Titanic's hull during the sinking done by naval engineers at Gibbs & Cox, Inc. The other is the
Hacket/Bedford paper "The Sinking of Titanic - Investigated by Modern Methods" published for the Royal Institute of Naval
Architects by a current and retired naval architect for Harland & Wolff (builders of Titanic). This is supplemented with my own
research at the Woodshole Oceanographic Institution archives on Titanic.

The evidence driving this discussion is the current condition of the stern. Of note, the starboard shell plate is missing for some 160 feet
(42 meters) aft of the forward tear. The debris alongside the wreck is a mix of decks and shell plate sections that comprise a fraction of
the original mass. This huge section fell off sometime well before impact. The port side shell plate is still present, but is separated
from the keel for 120 feet (36 meters) or more aft of the tear and is splayed out too far to have "bounced" out there on impact. The
bow section shows no evidence of the shell plate separating from the keel, despite the impact.

How was the shell plate separated from the keel? How did this play into the events of the sinking as reported by survivors? After the
break, why didn't the stern remain afloat, or at least restart a slower filling and overflow of compartments? After the break, the stern
tipped and up sank so quickly that many survivors saw no significant interruption in the sinking of the ship.

To set the stage for the break-up, we reference the Hacket/Bedford paper. They modeled and simulated the sinking using their
extensive knowledge and the company's archives on Titanic. They concluded that Titanic reaches a critical point when the front six
watertight compartments are flooded and the seventh (#4 boiler room) is about half full. At that point the ship's design is compromised
and it tips up to begin the final plunge. This point occurred about 20 minutes before the ship disappeared.

From the paper, the figure marked Condition C7 shows the ship in the process of beginning the final plunge. The break-up occurred
about this time. #1 funnel was inundated and the collapsible boats were floated off the bridge area. Water is moving up the corridors
and beginning to flood the compartments for #2 and #3 boiler rooms.

Referring to the Gibbs & Cox finite element analysis of the stress (see figure 1), it points out the tremendous pull stress being exerted
on the ship's upper structures and the compression stress of the keel. This model, however, stops after filling the first six
compartments. It doesn't follow through to stress
conditions after Titanic began the final plunge. While the paper states no conclusion, the discussion refers to the expansion joints
several times and leads the reader to believe they are significant.
 Figure 1: Gibbs&Cox, Inc.

Of note, the inch thick steel sides of Titanic are the strength of the ship's design. The lower ship's structure of the keel, the watertight
bulkheads, the decks between them, and the interior pillar system also make for a strong structure. This structure provides the current
stern with most of it's form and appears relatively intact aft of the engine room. The decks above the watertight bulkheads show far
more movement and damage.

Keying on the compression stress indicated in the simulation, and applying that to the model in the Hacket/Bedford paper, we create a
new Condition 8 indicating the start of the break-up. The single point failure of the hull, namely the buckling of the keel near the
current tear, relieves much of the compression stress on the keel and transfers it to the sides. The side shell plate is compelled to bow
outward as the keel length shortens. This is supported by William Garzke, an American naval architect and shipwreck forensic
specialist in writings for Titanic International's issue #25 of "Voyage".

At this point, we can apply the potential forces of the ship's mass diametrically opposed to the ship's design. The weight of the bow
section is pulling perpendicularly downward. Buoyant forces are pushing up on the broad bottom of the ship, trying to right the stern.
The sides try to remain rectangular.

The sum total of the bow's weight pulling down the sides is focused on the ribs immediately aft of the buckle. This yanks the ribs off
the side of the tank top and produces a 90 degree sheer to the connections for the lower deck structures. The upper decks pull
downward, still attached to the shell plate.

Condition 9 indicates the bow and stern sections separated by 10-20 feet. The bow is slowly gaining momentum as it drops. The sterns
interior structure is trying to right itself, levered by the weight of the stern out of water. The transfer of downward pull sets up stresses
that, in effect, unzip the shell plate from the tank top going back to the forward engine room.
Condition 10 shows the 'zipper' effect extending back to the turbine room or beyond. The overall shell plate attempts to maintain a
rectangular shape as steel plates will have very little stretch. The arch that inherently tries to occur along the upper edges is translated
to an inward bow of the upper decks.

Condition 11 shows stress on the shell plate at a critical point where they begin to break up. The #1 boiler room is forced upward into
the falling upper decks and the center section of the ship grinds itself up, spilling out the single ended boilers. The rapid flooding of
the turbine room smashed the condensers and allows us to find interior sections of the condensers in the debris field.

The stern is left low in the water at the head as the bow begins the trip to the bottom. With the watertight compartments compromised
back to the dynamo room, it fills in only minutes to allow the stern to settle and tip up so quickly that many survivors didn't notice an
interruption in the sinking process.
This process also allows the stern to be more gradually lowered into the water. In a top down break, all models and simulations show
the stern flopping down into the water, as seen in the Cameron movie. The splash and wave produced would have been enormous, but
survivor accounts don't indicate this.

As the stern nosed in, it rotated nearly 180 degrees to starboard. If the starboard shell plate broke-up after the port side, an extra pull
from the sinking bow may have started the turn. Separating the shell plate farther on the starboard side may have caused more rapid
flooding on that side, producing a list which is translated into a roll as the ship tips up.

Partial attachment of the port shell plate prevented it from falling off and possibly pulling off the upper decks as the ship tipped up.
The starboard shell plate probably fell off near the surface, yanking off a portion of A-deck. The loss of stability from the shell plate
allowed the starboard portions of B and C decks to be caught in the current, flipping them up and back over themselves. As the stern
dropped, it righted itself and the large flap of port shell plate produced a counter-clockwise spin.

On impact, the port shell plate, already held out by the current, splays out to it's current position. The lower decks maintain their
general shape, much as the bow behaved. The upper decks, yanked to and fro by the uneven loss of weight from the fragmenting shell
plate, flop randomly on the system of pillars and give us the "chaotic" appearance we see today.

Conclusion

A top-down break requires a number of single point failures working together and plays into the strength of the ship's design. A
bottom-up break works against the strengths of the ship's design. A top-down break should have left the stern afloat longer, and the
front of the stern should appear more as the rear of the bow section appears today. That is not the case. A bottom-up break is more
likely to leave the stern of the ship looking as it was discovered in 1985.

The proof may lie in further examinations of the keel sections in the debris field. A consistent pattern of downward damage along the
edges of the tanktop may provide compelling evidence.

On a sad note, if the theory above is right, then for the engineers in the lower engine spaces, the end was more violent than we can
imagine. The steel structures around them came crashing down around them as the sea blasted in.

Implosion damage

Much of the damage to the stern section is attributed to implosion damage. Implosion means that the external pressure of the water
overcomes the internal air pressure and structures collapse inward.

This is easy to do in the sea. For every 32 feet of depth, sea water exerts on additional atmosphere (15 pounds per square inch) of
pressure. What this means is that as the poop deck was about 1/3 submerged, the center of the after well deck was over 60 feet (20
meters) underwater, with a pressure of 2 atmospheres. That's 30 pounds per square inch or more than 2 tons per square foot. If the ship
is air filled, then the decks are crushed inward by the weight of the water.

This also means that the ship was suffering implosion damage in the middle of the stern section before the poop deck was fully
submerged. This would have added to the rumbling sound heard by survivors. Big ships die a horribly noisy death.

Remarkably, the damage to the forward half of the stern section was caused during the break-up, the rapid flooding that followed, and
the final impact, not implosion damage. True implosion damage is surprising limited to the well deck (that wasn't supported by the
watertight bulkheads) and only the outer edges of D, E, and F-decks, mostly on the starboard side. But this damage on the outer fringe
severed the right angle connections with the sides along the well deck area and the sides splayed outward on impact, making the stern
look far worse than it is. The interior structure from D-deck down to the keel held together well.

The interior cabins are another story. As the near vertical stern sank, the water raced up the decks, bulldozing the interior walls. In the
areas of the cargo hatches, the water blasted down the shafts and stairs, smashing the lightweight structures between the decks. In the
Angus photo view down the #6 cargo hatch, a large amount of random interior wall plating can be seen strewn about the edges of the
shaft.

The safes to the assistant purser's office were found in the debris field. They found their way out of the ship from 3 decks within and
moved through 3 rows of cabins to find their exit to the seafloor.

The poop deck was peeled up either because water scooped under it during sinking or due to a final blast of air forced out from the
lower decks by rapid flooding. The latter can often be seen in footage of ships sunk by U-boats. The poop deck peeled up as far as the
aft end of the 3rd class public rooms and folded back on itself, skewed a bit to starboard. The docking bridge juts out from under the
folded poop deck in the broken starboard aft corner. At least one of the forward cranes was thrown off the stern some 50 feet (15
meters) aft of the final resting place on impact.
The stern impacted rudder first, but not at the steep angle mentioned in the "Titanic - Anatomy of a Disaster". The poop deck was
already tilted up and probably back, but the wreck shows A and B-decks around the mast tilted slightly to fore and a little to port,
hence the mast is tilted slightly fore and to port.

The center propeller is totally buried. The outboard props and the 'wings' to the propeller shafts were sheered from the ship and are
bent upward at nearly 20 degrees, leaving the props visible almost at the level of the G-deck portholes. The starboard prop blade still
sports the '401' hull number for Titanic from Harland & Wolff.