On 11/16/2014 3:30 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" > Real world 85% engineered solutions:
1. Titanic
Everyone likes to rag on the Titanic's design, but I've read a fair amount about it, and it's quite an unfair rap. It was, for its day, the safest ship afloat, and did represent a significant step forward in safety:
1. The watertight compartments were innovative and kept the Titanic afloat for hours. Without them, it would have sank very quickly. The damage the Titanic suffered was very unusual in its extensiveness, and would have sunk any ship of the day.
2. The wireless was new and state of the art, without it the Titanic would have sunk with all aboard without a trace, and what happened to it would have been a great mystery. The fault with the wireless had nothing to do with its engineering, but with its management (the California did not keep a 24 hr watch on the radio).
3. The hull steel was inferior by today's standards, but was the best available by the standards of its time.
4. The rudder was inadequate, but little was known at the time about how such large ships would handle, and they didn't exactly have computer simulation software available.
5. The oft-repeated thing about the lifeboats was a little unreasonable. The way ships usually sink it's very difficult to launch any lifeboats successfully. If the ship listed, the boats on the high side could not be launched at all, and if it tilted down at a steeper angle none of them could be launched. The way the Titanic sank, slowly and fairly levelly, enabling nearly all the boats to be launched, was very unusual. The idea was with the watertight compartments it would sink slowly enough that the boats could be used to ferry the passengers to safety. That in fact would have worked if the California had been monitoring the wireless.
It's unfair to apply the hubris of hindsight. Apply instead the standards and practices of the foresight, and the Titanic comes off very well.
It was not designed to drive full speed into an iceberg, and modern ships can't handle that, either. Actually, the Titantic would likely have fared better than modern ships if it didn't try to turn but simply rammed it head on. The watertight compartments would have kept it afloat.
For comparison, look what happened to that italian cruise ship a few years ago. It got a minor hole punched in the side by a rock, rolled over and sank.
