JOM • January 199812

Over the last 30 years, there has been a discernible increase in the number of scholars who have focused their research on early industrial organizations, a field of study thathas come to be known as Archaeotechnology . Archaeologists have conducted fieldwork geared to the study of ancient technologies in a cultural context and have drawn onthe laboratory analyses developed by materials scientists as one portion of their interpretive program. Papers for this bimonthly department are solicited and reviewed by RobertM. Ehrenreich of the National Materials Advisory Board of the National Research Council.

The bow of the ship as it appeared

during a 1986 expedition. (Photo cour-

tesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic

Institution.)

Another view of the Titanic during a1986 expedition. (Photo courtesy ofWoods Hole Oceanographic Insti-tution.)

The Royal Mail Ship Titanic:Did a Metallurgical Failure

Cause a Night to Remember?Katherine Felkins, H.P. Leighly, Jr., and A. Jankovic

The Titanic. (Photo courtesy ofthe Titanic Historical Society.)

The ship during a 1986 expedition. (Photo courtesyof Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.)

Editor’s Note: A hypertext-enhanced version of thisarticle can be found on the TMS web site at http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9801/Felkins-9801.html.

INTRODUCTION

In the early part of this century, theonly means of transportation for trav-elers and mail between Europe andNorth America was by passengersteamship. By 1907, the CunardSteamship Company introduced thelargest and fastest steamers in theNorth Atlantic service: the Lusitaniaand the Mauritania. Each had a grosstonnage of 31,000 tons and a maxi-mum speed of 26 knots. In that year,Lord William James Pirrie, managingdirector and controlling chair of theIrish shipbuilding company Harland

A metallurgical analysis of steel takenfrom the hull of the Titanic’s wreckage

reveals that it had a high ductile-brittle transition temperature, making

it unsuitable for service at lowtemperatures; at the time of the

collision, the temperature of the seawater was –2°C. The analysis also

shows, however, that the steel usedwas probably the best plain carbonship plate available at the time of

the ship’s construction.

and Wolff, met with J. Bruce Ismay,managing director of the OceanicSteam Navigation Company, betterknown as the White Star Line (a nametaken from its pennant). During thismeeting, plans were made to con-struct three enormous new WhiteStar liners to compete with theLusitania and Mauritania on the NorthAtlantic by establishing a three-shipweekly steamship service for passen-gers and mail between Southampton,England, and New York City. Thisdecision required the construction ofa trio of luxurious steamships. Thefirst two built were the RMS Olympicand the RMS Titanic; a third ship, theRMS Britannic, was built later (thefate of the sister ships is described in

Feature Archaeotechnology

1998 January • JOM 13

THE LIVES OF THE SISTER SHIPSThe RMS Olympic made more than 500 round trips

between Southampton and New York before it wasretired in 1935 and was finally broken up in 1937. In1919, it became the first large ship to be converted fromcoal to oil. On May 15, 1934, as the Olympic approachedNew York, it struck the Nantucket light ship during aheavy fog, cutting it in half. Of the crew, four weredrowned, three were fatally injured, and three wererescued.1

The third ship of the series, the Britannic, had a shortlife. While it was being constructed, the Titanic was

sunk. Immediately, the design was changed to providea double hull and the bulkheads were extended to theupper deck. Before the Britannic was completed, WorldWar I broke out, and the vessel was converted into ahospital ship. On November 21, 1916, it was proceedingnorth through the Aegean Sea east of Greece when itstruck a mine. Because the weather had been warm,many of the portholes had been opened, hence rapidflooding of the ship occurred. The ship sank in 50minutes with a small loss of life; one of the loaded lifeboats was drawn into a rotating propeller.

Figure 1. The Titanic under construction at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Ireland. (Photocourtesy of the Titanic Historical Society.)

the sidebar).The Titanic be-

gan its maidenvoyage to NewYork just beforenoon on April 10,1912, from Sou-thampton, Eng-land. Two dayslater at 11:40 P.M.,Greenland time,it struck an ice-berg that wasthree to six timeslarger than itsown mass, dam-aging the hull sothat the six for-ward compart-ments were rup-tured. The flood-ing of these com-partments wassufficient to causethe ship to sinkwithin two hoursand 40 minutes,with a loss ofmore than 1,500 lives. The scope of thetragedy, coupled with a detailed histori-cal record, have fueled endless fascina-tion with the ship and debate over thereasons as to why it did in fact sink. Afrequently cited culprit is the quality ofthe steel used in the ship’s construction.A metallurgical analysis of hull steelrecovered from the ship’s wreckage pro-vides a clearer view of the issue.

THE CONSTRUCTION

The three White Star Line steamshipswere 269.1 meters long, 28.2 meters maxi-mum wide, and 18 meters tall from thewater line to the boat deck (or 53 metersfrom the keel to the top of the funnels),with a gross weight of 46,000 tons. Be-cause of the size of these ships, much ofthe Harland and Wolff shipyard inBelfast, Ireland, had to be rebuilt beforeconstruction could begin; two largerways were built in the space originallyoccupied by three smaller ways. A newgantry system with a larger load-carry-ing capacity was designed and installedto facilitate the construction of the largerships. The Titanic under construction atthe shipyard is shown in Figure 1.

The ships were designed to provideaccommodations superior to the Cunardships, but with-out greater speed.The first on-board swimmingpools were in-stalled as was agymnasium thatincluded an elec-tric horse and anelectric camel, asquash court, anumber of row-

ing machines, and stationary bicycles,all supervised by a staff of professionalinstructors. The public rooms for thefirst-class passengers were large and el-egantly furnished with wood paneling,stained-glass windows, comfortablelounge furniture, and expensive carpets.The decor of the first class cabins, inaddition to being luxurious, differed instyle from cabin to cabin. As an extrafeature on the Titanic, the Café Parisienneoffered superb cuisine.

The designed speed for these shipswas 21–22 knots, in contrast to the fasterCunard ships. To achieve this speed,each ship had three propellers; each out-board propeller was driven by a sepa-rate four-cylinder, triple expansion, re-ciprocating steam engine.2 The centerpropeller was driven by a low-pressuresteam turbine using the exhaust steamfrom the two reciprocating engines. Thepower plant was rated at 51,000 I.H.P.To provide the necessary steam for thepower plant, 29 boilers were available,fired by 159 furnaces. In addition to pro-pelling the ship, steam was used to gen-erate electricity for various purposes,distill fresh water, refrigerate the perish-able food, cook, and heat the living space.Coal was burned as fuel at a rate of 650

tons per daywhen the shipwas underway.Stokers movedthe coal from thebunkers into thefurnaces by hand.The bunkers heldenough coal for aten-day voyage.

The remodeledshipyard at Har-land and Wolffwas large enoughfor the construc-tion of two largeships simulta-neously. The keelof the Olympicwas laid Decem-ber 16, 1908,while the Titanic‘skeel followed onMarch 31, 1909.The Olympic waslaunched on Oc-tober 20, 1910,and the Titanic on

May 31, 1911. In the early 20th century,ships were constructed using wrought-iron rivets to attach steel plates to eachother or to a steel frame. The frame itselfwas held together by similar rivets. Holeswere punched at appropriate sites in thesteel-frame members and plates for theinsertion of the rivets. Each rivet washeated well into the austenite tempera-ture region, inserted in the mated holesof the respective plates or frame mem-bers, and hydraulically squeezed to fillthe holes and form a head. Three millionrivets were used in the construction ofthe ship.

The construction of the Titanic wasdelayed due to an accident involving theOlympic. During its fifth voyage,3 theOlympic collided with the British cruiser,HMS Hawke, damaging its hull near thebow on the port (left) side. This occurredin the Solent off Southampton on Sep-tember 20, 1911. The Olympic was forcedto return to Belfast for repairs. To accom-plish the repairs in record time and toreturn the ship to service promptly,workmen were diverted from the Titanicto repair the Olympic.

On April 2, 1912, the Titanic left Belfastfor Southampton and its sea trials in theIrish Sea. After two days at sea, the Ti-

tanic, with itscrew and officers,arrived at Sout-hampton and tiedup to Ocean Dockon April 4. Dur-ing the next sev-eral days, the shipwas provisionedand prepared forits maiden voy-age.

JOM • January 199814

Figure 2. An optical micrograph of steel forthe hull of the Titanic in (a) longitudinal and (b)transverse directions, showing banding thatresulted in elongated pearlite colonies andMnS particles. Etchant is 2% Nital.

b 100 µm

a 100 µm

Table I. A Summary of Damaged Areasin the Hull by Compartment* 6

ComputerCompartment Calculations (m2)

Fore Peak 0.056Cargo Hold 1 0.139Cargo Hold 2 0.288Cargo Hold 3 0.307Boiler Room 6 0.260Boiler Room 5 0.121Total Area 1.171* The compartments are listed in order from the bow to-

ward the stern.

Figure 3. The microstructure of ASTM A36steel showing ferrite and pearlite. The meangrain diameter is 26.173 µm. Etchant is 2%Nital.

20 µm

Table II. The Composition of Steels from the Titanic, a Lock Gate, and ASTM A36 Steel

C Mn P S Si Cu O N Mn:S Ratio

Titanic Hull Plate 0.21 0.47 0.045 0.069 0.017 0.024 0.013 0.0035 6.8:1Lock Gate* 0.25 0.52 0.01 0.03 0.02 — 0.018 0.0035 17.3:1ASTM A36 0.20 0.55 0.012 0.037 0.007 0.01 0.079 0.0032 14.9:1* Steel from a lock gate at the Chittenden ship lock between Lake Washington and Puget Sound, Seattle, Washington.

THE VOYAGE

On the morning of April 10, 1912, thepassengers and remaining crew mem-bers came to Ocean Dock to board theship for its maiden voyage. Shortly be-fore noon, the Titanic cast off and nar-rowly avoided colliding with a dockedpassenger ship, the New York (whichbroke its mooring cables due to the surgeof water as the huge ship passed), beforeproceeding down Southampton Waterinto the Solent and then into the EnglishChannel. After a stop at Cherbourg,France, on the evening of April 10th anda second stop at Queenstown (nowCobh), Ireland, the next morning to takeon more passengers and mail, the Titanicheaded west on the Great Circle Routetoward the Nantucket light ship 68 kilo-meters south of Nantucket Island off thesoutheast coast of Massachusetts. TheIrish coast was left behind about duskon April 11.

During the early afternoon of April 12,the French liner, La Touraine, sent adviceby radio of ice in the steamship lanes, butthis was not uncommon during an Aprilcrossing. This advice was sent nearly 60hours before the fatal collision. As thevoyage continued, the warnings of icereceived by radio from other ships be-came more frequent. With time, thesewarnings gave more accurate informa-tion on the location of the icefields and itbecame apparent that a very large icefieldlay in the ship’s course. On the basis ofseveral reports after the accident, it wasestimated that the icefield was 120 kmlong on a northeast-southwest axis and20 km wide;4 there is evidence that theTitanic was twice diverted to the south ina vain effort to avoid the fields. The shipcontinued at a speed of about 21.5 knots.

On the moonless night of April 14, theocean was very calm and still. At 11:40P.M., Greenland time, the lookouts in thecrow’s nest sighted an iceberg immedi-ately ahead of the ship; the bridge wasalerted. The duty officer ordered the shiphard to port and the engines reversed. Inabout 40 seconds, as the Titanic was be-ginning to respond to the change incourse, it collided with an iceberg esti-mated to have a gross weight of 150,000–300,000 tons. The iceberg struck the Ti-tanic near the bow on the starboard (right)

side about 4 m above the keel. Duringthe next 10 seconds, the iceberg rakedthe starboard side of the ship’s hull forabout 100 m, damaging the hull platesand popping rivets, thus opening thefirst six of the 16 watertight compart-ments formed by the transverse bulk-heads. Inspection shortly after the colli-sion by captain Edward Smith and Tho-mas Andrews, a managing director andchief designer for Harland and Wolffand chief designer of the Titanic, revealedthat the ship had been fatally damagedand could not survive long. At 2:20 A.M.,April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank with theloss of more than 1,500 lives.

THE SINKING

Initial studies of the sinking proposedthat a continuous gash in the hull 100 min length was created by the impact withthe iceberg. More recent studies indicatethat discontinuous damage occurredalong the 100 m length of the hull. Afterthe sinking, Edward Wilding, designengineer for Harland and Wolff, esti-mated that the collision had created open-ings in the hull totaling 1.115 m2, basedon the reports of the rate of floodinggiven by the survivors.5 This damage tothe hull was sufficient to cause the shipto sink. Recent computer calculations by

Hackett and Bedford6 using the samesurvivors’ information, but allocating thedamage individually to the first six com-partments that were breached is given inTable I. This shows a total damage areaof 1.171 m2, which is a slightly larger areathan the estimate by Wilding.

At the time of the accident, there wasdisagreement among the survivors as towhether the Titanic broke into two partsas it sank or whether it sank intact. OnSeptember 1, 1985, Robert Ballard5 foundthe Titanic in 3,700 m of water on theocean floor. The ship had broken intotwo major sections, which are about600 m apart. Between these two sectionsis a debris field containing broken piecesof steel hull and bulkhead plates, rivetsthat had been pulled out, dining-roomcutlery and chinaware, cabin and deckfurniture, and other debris.

The only items to survive at the siteare those made of metals or ceramics. Allitems made from organic materials havelong since been consumed by scaven-gers, except for items made from leathersuch as shoes, suitcases, and mail sacks;tanning made leather unpalatable forthe scavengers. The contents of theleather suitcases and mail sacks, havingbeen protected, have been retrieved andrestored. Ethical and legal issues associ-ated with the recovery of such items aredescribed in the sidebar authored byC.R. McGill.

THE STEELComposition

During an expedition to the wreckagein the North Atlantic on August 15, 1996,researchers brought back steel from thehull of the ship for metallurgical analy-sis. After the steel was received at theUniversity of Missouri–Rolla, the firststep was to determine its composition.The chemical analysis of the steel from

1998 January • JOM 15

Figure B. Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet wade through

the first class dining saloon in a scene from Titanic. (Photo by

Merie W. Wallace and courtesy of Paramount Pictures and

Twentieth Century Fox.)

THE TITANIC IN THE ARTS

Since its tragic voyage in 1912, the RMS Titanic hascaptured the attention and the imagination of the world.The shocking, untimely death of more than 1,500 people,the irony of the “unsinkable” ship doing the unthinkableon its maiden voyage, and the first-hand accounts of theapproximately 700 survivors have spurred countlessdebates and discussions on the reasons for the ship’sdemise. As the debate continues in scientific, historical,and even legal circles, the ship, her crew, and passen-gers have been memorialized time and again throughthe arts.

Numerous accounts of the ship and her sisters, theOlympic and Britannic, have been published during thepast 80 years;

some have been fac-tual, others fictionalized adaptations. One of the firstnon-newspaper accounts, and one of the most popular,is the book A Night to Remember, written by Walter Lordin 1955. According to Lord, in the four decades follow-ing the sinking there was no worldwide general interestin the ship and no historical accounts of the voyage.Based on historical materials and first-hand accounts ofsurvivors and witnesses, A Night to Remember isreportedly the first book to give a factual account of thenight the ship sank. A nearly countless number of bookshave followed.

On film, the Titanic has been the subject for a numberof docudramas and early disaster films. One of the firstwas Titanic, done in 1926. About 16 years later, HerbertSelpin directed a German film on the subject. Arguablythe most well-known film on the Titanic is the same-titled film directed by Jean Negulesco in 1953. A fiction-alized account of one family on the Titanic, the film wontwo Academy Awards that year for Best Art Directionand Best Original Screenplay. The movie, starringBarbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, set the standardfor early disaster films in the United States. On the otherside of the Atlantic, English filmmakers adapted Lord’sA Night to Remember into a film of the same name in1958. Unlike the romanticized U.S. version, producerWilliam MacQuitty and director Eric Ambler created agritty, realistic docudrama using state-of-the-art specialeffects. For one of the first times in filmmaking, theactors worked on sets that were tilted by hydraulic jacks,creating loud, grinding noises that imitated the sounds

the ship would have made in sinking.When Robert Ballard and an American-French search

team discovered the site of the Titanic in 1985, interestin the ship and her history resurged. Images of the shipon the sea floor taken by underwater robots more than70 years after the disaster brought the Titanic and itssaga back into international pop culture. Today, thereare videos, CD-ROMs, and even computer gamesavailable that allow users to become a passenger on theship. The emergence of the Internet has enabled peoplefrom around the world to access a wealth of photo-graphs, animated film clips, sound clips, and historical

information on the subject or join groupscomposed of other Titanic enthusiasts.

Plays on the Titanic appear ev-erywhere from dinner theaters through-out the United States to the Great WhiteWay—Broadway. In 1997, the Broad-way musical Titanic won a Tony Awardfor the Best Musical, released a top-selling cast album, and, on the aver-age, surpassed ticket sales for anyshow on Broadway.

The most recent addition to thecollection is Titanic, a 1997 film byTwentieth Century Fox and Para-mount Pictures that focuses on thelove story of two young passen-gers. Released on December 19,the film reportedly became the mostexpensive film ever made ($200million according to some reports)in its attempt to be as historicallyaccurate as possible. To assist

the production crew, a group of historians and expertson the Titanic were brought aboard as consultants,including Don Lynch, the historian for the Titanic Histori-cal Society, and Ken Marschall, noted artist of the ship.Shipbuilders Harland and Wolff provided copies of theoriginal blueprints of the Titantic and Thomas Andrews’own notebook on the ship’s design features to theproduction crew. In addition, the manufacturer of theoriginal carpeting, which is still in business, had theoriginal patterns on file and reproducedthe dyes.

To make the ship as authentic aspossible, director James Cameron char-tered a Russian scientific vessel andmade 12 dives to the actual wreck siteto film the interior of the ship. Using anoff-the-shelf 35 mm camera modifiedto fit in custom-made titanium hous-ings, the camera brought back reels offilm showing the ship’s interior—ev-erything from window frames, lightfixtures, a brass door plate, and evena bronze fireplace box. “We wereable to come back with this richharvest of film and video images,”Cameron said. ‘We sent our re-mote vehicle inside and exploredthe interiors. We literally saw thingsthat no one has seen since 1912,since the ship went down. We’veintegrated these images into thefabric of the film and that reality has a

profound impact on the emotional power of the film.”The complete set was built at Fox Baja Studios in

Mexico beginning on May 30, 1996; it was completed100 days later. The set featured a 64.2 million literexterior seawater tank (the largest shooting tank in theworld). Whereas the 1953 movie used a 8.5 m model ofthe ship, the 1997 movie recreated a nearly full size,236 m long exterior set of the Titanic standing nearly14 m tall from the water line to the boat deck floor, withits four funnels towering another 16 m.

To recreate the sinking of the ship, several exteriorand interior shooting tanks were used. (A still from themovie appears on the cover of this issue.) The first-classdining saloon and three-story grand staircase wereconstructed on a hydraulic platform at the bottom of the9 m interior tank designed to be angled and flooded with19 million liters of filtered seawater drawn from theocean. Camera cranes and jacks were placed abovethe ship for the final filming stages, when the ship wasseparated into two pieces. The front half was sunk in12 m of water using hydraulics.

Preliminary reviews of the movie at the time this issuegoes to press in early December (prior to the movie’srelease) have been very good, and the movie hasalready made several top ten lists for 1997, includingone by Rolling Stone magazine. The Hollywood Re-porter says, “Titanic’s visual and special effects tran-scend state-of-the-art workmanship . . . Pencil [Gloria]Stuart in for a likely best supporting actress nominationthis winter. Also on the Oscar front, clear the deck formultiple technical nominations. . . . The iron monster isa heart stopper.”

It is doubtful that the Titanic will be the last film madeabout this ill-fated ship. Through the years, the saga ofthe Titanic has taken on a life of its own. As songs,poems, historical accounts, and novels continue tobe created, the story has merged into modern urbanfolklore.

“The tragedy of the Titanic has assumed an almostmythic quality in our collective imagination,” Cameronsaid. “Titanic is not just a cautionary tale—a myth, aparable, a metaphor for the ills of mankind. It is also astory of faith, courage, sacrifice, and above all else,love.”

Tammy M. BeazleyJOM

Figure A. The RMS Titanic leaves port in the 1997 movie

Titanic. (Photo by Merie W. Wallace and courtesy of Paramount

Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox.)

the hull is given in Table II. The first itemnoted is the very low nitrogen content.This indicates that the steel was not madeby the Bessemer process; such steelwould have a high nitrogen content thatwould have made it very brittle, particu-larly at low temperatures. In the early20th century, the only other method formaking structural steel was the open-

hearth process. The fairly high oxygenand low silicon content means that thesteel has only been partially deoxidized,yielding a semikilled steel. The phos-phorus content is slightly higher thannormal, while the sulfur content is quitehigh, accompanied by a low manganesecontent. This yielded a Mn:S ratio of6.8:1—a very low ratio by modern stan-

dards. The presence of relatively highamounts of phosphorous, oxygen, andsulfur has a tendency to embrittle thesteel at low temperatures.

Davies7 has shown that at the time theTitanic was constructed about two-thirdsof the open-hearth steel produced in theUnited Kingdom was done in furnaceshaving acid linings. There is a high prob-

JOM • January 199816

THE ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN SALVAGING THE TITANIC

Author’s Note: The author thanks Michael McCaughan of the Ulster Folkand Transport Museum, Northern Ireland, for his assistance in the prepa-ration of this sidebar.

The Titanic has engaged the attention of a rapt worldaudience for almost a century now. As the most famousand historic of all shipwrecks, it is enshrouded in a cloakof mystery and controversy; the traumatic effect that theloss of the ship had on the public at the time of thedisaster has not abated, making the Titanic seem al-most eternal.

Numerous plans to salvage the ship and its cargowere developed over the 73 years that the Titanic layundiscovered 4 km below the ocean surface. It was notuntil 1985 that salvage became feasible, when RobertBallard of the Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole,Massachusetts, discovered the ship’s exact location aspart of a joint American-French research team.

Serious issues were immediately raised over thecontroversial question of salvage rights, the main issuebeing that the wreck lay in international waters; there isno legal protection in international waters for wrecks ofhistorical or archaeological significance. In such cases,wrecks are subject to salvage law, which stipulates thatthe first salvor on the site has exclusive rights to the site.Thus, other salvors are prevented from accessing thesite as long as expeditions are being planned andconducted to recover artifacts from the wreck.

Robert Ballard could not legally claim salvage rightsto the wreck, since he discovered it while working on agovernment research project. The French Oceanogra-phy Institute, which was the French component of thejoint American-French research team and had receivedlittle acknowledgement for its contribution in the discov-ery of the wreck, had no such constraints, however. Itwas soon involved in the formation of the commercialsalvage company that was to become RMS Titanic, Inc.

More than 1,500 people—rich and poor, represent-ing more than 20 countries—perished in the disaster.The ship had broken into two separate parts, with thestern section lying about 804.5 m beyond the bowportion. A huge field of debris covers the ocean floorbetween the two pieces. RMS Titanic, Inc., stated earlyon that they only intended to record the site; recover,conserve, preserve, and tour just those artifacts recov-ered from the debris field; and keep the collectiontogether rather than sell it to individual buyers aroundthe world. The culmination of the project would be a

Titanic Memorial Museum in which all of the artifactsrecovered would be kept. (It should be noted, however,that RMS Titanic, Inc., has recently made available forsale to the general public authenticated coal from thesea bed.)

Reaction was strong and immediate. Individuals andorganizations from around the world vehemently op-posed the idea of salvage work being done on theTitanic, claiming that the wreck was a grave site andshould be left undisturbed as a memorial to those whodied. Such organizations as the Titanic Historical Soci-ety (the largest and most senior of the Titanic enthusiastbodies) of the United States and the Ulster TitanicSociety of Northern Ireland (where the ship was built)set themselves against the salvage operation. RobertBallard, who strongly believes in the sanctity of the site,worked to get a U.S. federal law passed making it illegalto buy or sell artifacts from the site in the United States.

Other individuals and institutions allied themselveswith the salvage, provided that it was done well and ingood taste. They were concerned that artifacts would besold and dispersed if a company other than RMSTitanic, Inc., were the salvors dealing with the wreck;unscrupulous salvors interested only in pure commer-cial profit would not employ the same sort of painstakingrecording, recovery, and conservation methods thatRMS Titanic, Inc., used to retrieve materials recoveredduring the four research and discovery expeditionsconducted between 1987 and 1996. Interestingly, al-though the Ulster Titanic Society opposes the salvageof the wreck, the society believes that as long as salvagework continues, RMS Titanic, Inc., is the best salvor todo the job.

In the face of serious international and, at times,hostile criticism from the public, maritime archaeolo-gists, and museum professionals, the National MaritimeMuseum of Greenwich joined RMS Titanic, Inc., in apartnership to present the first exhibition of artifactsrecovered from the wreck. In 1994–95, 150 of theseveral thousand artifacts recovered from the debrisfield were displayed in an exhibition titled “Wreck of theTitanic.” The exhibition was billed as the “largest everpublic display of Titanic artifacts” and was a hugesuccess in terms of audience attendance and mediacoverage. More than 500,000 visitors saw the show.

The exhibit brought the museum into direct conflictwith the International Congress of Maritime Museums

(ICMM), however, of which it is a member. The museumand ICMM disagreed on the subject of salvors andsalvage law. The ICMM was concerned that the exhibi-tion included artifacts recovered from the site since1990, and “relics raised illegally or in inappropriatecircumstances after . . . 1990 . . . are considered out-of-bounds for ICMM-member museums.”1

Richard Ormond of the National Maritime Museumclaimed that “the objectives of the exhibition were todemonstrate the technical achievement of finding andexploring the site, to show conservation techniques andthe extraordinary survival of objects on the sea bed, andto examine the controversy in detail.”2 The museumstressed that none of the artifacts on display came fromthe hull of the ship, which was the true grave site of thevictims. Michael McCaughan, a Titanic expert from theUlster Folk and Transport Museum in Northern Irelandvisited the exhibition and felt that the “150 artifacts weredisplayed sensitively in a variety of contexts . . . Funda-mentally this was not an exhibit about the past, but aboutthe present and its appropriation of the past. The exhibitwas not a requiem for the dead, nor did it address themetaphorical meaning of Titanic. Rather, it was anenshrinement of the triumphs of deep-sea explorationand the reviving wonders of conservation laboratories.”3

Despite the controversy and arguments over thesalvage work conducted by RMS Titanic, Inc., there isno doubt whatsoever that the company’s work is legal.RMS Titanic, Inc., was granted salvor-in-possessionrights to the wreck by a U.S. federal court in 1994.Despite a challenge, these rights were reconfirmed in1996, giving the company exclusive rights to own arti-facts recovered from the wreck. The 1996 judgmenttook into consideration the site recordings, artifact con-servation, and commitment of RMS Titanic, Inc., to keepthe artifact collection together for public display.

References1. G. Henderson, “Underwater Archaeology and the Titanic: The ICMMView,” The IXth International Congress of Maritime Museums: Proceed-ings (U.K.: National Maritime Museum, 1996), pp. 64–68.2. R. Ormond, “Titanic and Underwater Archaeology: The National Mari-time Museum View,” The IXth International Congress of Maritime Muse-ums: Proceedings (U.K.: National Maritime Museum, 1996), pp. 59–63.3. M. McCaughan, “Exhibit Review of the National Maritime Museum,Reading the Relics: Titanic Culture and the Wreck of the Titanic Exhibit,”Material History Review, 43 (1996), pp. 68–72.

Carmel R. McGillConsultant

Table III. A Comparison of TensileTesting of Titanic Steel and SAE 1020

Titanic SAE 102011

Yield Strength 193.1 MPa 206.9 MPaTensile Strength 417.1 MPa 379.2 MPaElongation 29% 26%Reduction in Area 57.1% 50%

10 µm

Figure 4. A scanning electron micrograph ofthe etched surface of the Titanic hull steelshowing pearlite colonies, ferrite grains, anelongated MnS particle, and nonmetallic in-clusions. Etchant is 2% Nital.

20 µmFigure 5. A scanning electron micrograph of aCharpy impact fracture surface newly createdat 0°C, showing cleavage planes containingledges and protruding MnS particles.

ability that the steel used in the Titanicwas made in an acid-lined open-hearthfurnace, which accounts for the fairlyhigh phosphorus and high sulfur con-tent. The lining of the basic open-hearthfurnace will react with phosphorus andsulfur to help remove these two impuri-

ties from the steel. It is likely that all ormost of the steel came from Glasgow,Scotland.

Included in Table II are the composi-tions of two other steels: steel used toconstruct lock gates at the ChittendenShip Lock between Lake Washingtonand Puget Sound at Seattle, Washing-ton,8 and the composition of a modernsteel, ASTM A36. The ship lock was builtaround 1912, making the steel about thesame age as the steel from the Titanic.

Metallography

Standard metallographic techniqueswere used to prepare specimens takenfrom the hull plate of the Titanic foroptical microscopic examination. After

grinding and polishing, etching was donewith 2% Nital. Because earlier work byBrigham and Lafrenière9 showed severebanding in a specimen of the steel, speci-mens were cut from the hull plate in boththe transverse and longitudinal direc-tions. Figure 2 shows the microstructureof the steel. In both micrographs, it is

1998 January • JOM 17

5 µm

Figure 8. Shear fracture percent from Charpyimpact tests versus temperature for longitudi-nal and transverse Titanic specimens andASTM A36 steel.

Figure 6. A scanning electron micrographshowing a fractured MnS particle protrudingedge-on from the fracture surface.13

Figure 7. Charpy impact energy versus tem-perature for longitudinal and transverse Ti-tanic specimens and ASTM A36 steel.

apparent that the steel is banded, al-though the banding is more severe in thelongitudinal section. In this section, thereare large masses of MnS particles elon-gated in the direction of the banding.The average grain diameter is 60.40 µmfor the longitudinal microstructure and41.92 µm for the microstructure in thetransverse direction. In neither micro-graph can the pearlite be resolved. Forcomparison, Figure 3 is a micrograph ofASTM A36 steel, which has a mean graindiameter of 26.173 µm.

Figure 4 is a scanning electron micros-copy (SEM) micrograph of the polishedand etched surface of steel from the Ti-tanic. The pearlite can be resolved in thismicrograph. The dark gray areas areferrite. The very dark elliptically shapedstructure is a particle of MnS identifiedby energy-dispersive x-ray analysis(EDAX). It is elongated in the directionof the banding, suggesting that bandingis the result of the hot rolling of the steel.There is some evidence of small nonme-tallic inclusions and some of the ferritegrain boundaries are visible.

Tensile Testing

The steel plate from the hull of theTitanic was nominally 1.875 cm thick,while the bulkhead plate had a thicknessof 1.25 cm. Corrosion in the salt waterhad reduced the thickness of the hullplate so that it was not possible to ma-chine standard tensile specimens fromit. A smaller tensile specimen with areduced section of 0.625 cm diameterand a 2.5 cm gage length was used.10

The tensile-test results are given inTable III. These data are compared withtensile-test data for an SAE 1020 steel,which is similar in composition. The steelfrom the Titanic has the lower yieldstrength, probably due to a larger grainsize. The elongation increases as well,again due to a larger grain size.

Charpy Impact Tests

Charpy impact tests12 were performedover a range of temperatures from –55°Cto 179°C on three series of standardCharpy specimens: a series of specimensmachined with the specimen axis paral-

lel to the longitudinal direction in thehull plate from the Titanic, a series ma-chined in the transverse direction, and aseries made from modern ASTM A36steel. A Tinius Olsen model 84 universalimpact tester was used to determine theimpact energy to fracture for severalspecimens at the selected test tempera-tures. A chilling bath or a circulating airlaboratory oven was used to prepare thespecimens for testing at specific tem-peratures. The specimens were allowedto soak in the appropriate apparatus forat least 20 minutes at the selected tem-perature. Pairs of specimens were testedat identical test temperatures.

Figure 5 is an SEM micrograph of afreshly fractured surface of a longitudi-nal Charpy specimen tested at 0°C. Thecleavage planes, (100) in ferrite, are quiteapparent. There are cleavage plane sur-faces at different levels that are definedby straight lines. These straight linesare steps connecting parallel cleavageplanes; the edges are parallel to the [010]direction. The crystallographic surfacesof the risers are the (001) plane. In addi-tion, there are curved slip lines on thecleavage planes.

Particles of MnS identified by EDAXcan be observed. Some of the MnS par-ticles exist as protrusions from the sur-face. These protrusions were pulled outof the complimentary fracture surface.In addition, there are the intrusions re-maining after the MnS particles havebeen pulled out of this fracture surface.One of the pearlite colonies lying in thefracture surface is oriented so that theferrite and cementite plates have beenresolved. Figure 6 shows a fracturedlenticular MnS particle that protrudesedge-on from the fractured surface.13

There are slip lines radiating away fromthe MnS particle.

Figure 7 is a plot of the impact energyversus temperature for the three seriesof specimens. At higher temperatures,the specimens prepared from the hullplate in the longitudinal direction havesubstantially better impact properties

than for the transverse specimens. Atlow temperatures, the impact energyrequired to fracture the longitudinal andtransverse specimens is essentially thesame. The severe banding is certainlythe cause of the differences in the impactenergy to cause fracture at elevated tem-peratures. The specimens made fromASTM A36 steel have the best impactproperties. The ductile-brittle transitiontemperature determined at an impactenergy of 20 joules is –27°C for ASTMA36, 32°C for the longitudinal speci-mens made from the Titanic hull plate,and 56°C for the transverse specimens. Itis apparent that the steel used for thehull was not suited for service at lowtemperatures. The seawater temperatureat the time of the collision was –2°C.

Comparing the composition of the Ti-tanic steel and ASTM A36 steel showsthat the modern steel has a higher man-ganese content and lower sulfur con-tent, yielding a higher Mn:S ratio thatreduced the ductile-brittle transition tem-perature substantially. In addition,ASTM A36 steel has a substantially lowerphosphorus content, which will alsolower the ductile-brittle transition tem-perature. Jankovic8 found that the duc-tile-brittle transition temperature for theChittenden lock gate steel was 33°C. Thelongitudinal specimens of the Titanic hullsteel made in the United Kingdom andthose specimens from the Chittendenlock steel made in the United States havenearly the same ductile-brittle transitiontemperature.

Shear Fracture Percent

At low temperatures where the im-pact energy required for fracture is less,a faceted surface of cleaved planes offerrite is observed, indicating brittle frac-ture. At elevated temperatures, wherethe energy to cause fracture is greater, aductile fracture with a shear structure isobserved. Figure 8 is a plot of the shearfracture percent versus temperature.There is a fairly strong similarity be