Assignment 1

Engineering failures

Cape Breton University

School of Science & Technology

PETR 2134:02

Materials and equipment design

Due date: 11-03-2021

Arun Thambi: 20192605

Assignment 1 Engineering failures

1. What are the primary causes of engineering disasters? What are the other causes of
disaster may the author haven't mentioned?

The primary causes for engineering disasters are follows;

• Design flaws
• Material failures
• Extreme conditions or environments (not necessarily preventable)
• Some combinations of the reasons above.

The other causes of disaster are

• Human factors (including both 'ethical' failure and accidents)
• Several forms of miscommunication
• Fatigue or permanent deformation from exposure to radical temperatures or constant
loading
• Static loading - when a force is applied slowly to an object or structure
• Lack of safety procedures and safe work environments

2. Both RMS Titanic and its sister ship Olympic had history of collision, but Titanic had
much worse fate, explain why?
The major causes of the failure of RMS Titanic are listed below;
• Multiple rivet failures upon collision with iceberg – rivets were weak
• Reverse thrust reduced the ship's maneuverability
• Climate caused more icebergs
• Tides sent icebergs southward
• The ship was going too fast
• Iceberg warnings went unheeded
• The binoculars were locked up
• The steersman took a wrong turn
• There were too few lifeboats

After the Titanic sank in 1912, the Olympic underwent major safety improvements. Because
of these improvements Olympic survived for more years after the first accident in 1911. The
major changes done after 1912 Titanic’s accident are;
• Increase in the number of lifeboats
• Ship’s double bottom was lengthened
• Five of its watertight compartments (which featured doors that allowed the sections to
be isolated from each other) were raised from E deck to B deck

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3. How the microstructure of Titanic Rivet can be connected with the incident?

The microstructure of the rivet revels that the orientation of Fe-silicate stringers is
perpendicular to loading axis at the end of the rivet which results in much lower strength
and inferior resistance to crack propagation (figure 1).

Figure 1: Crack propagation in Titanic’s rivet

As per the studies done later it is found that the rivets may have been used because
higher-grade rivets were in short supply, or because the better rivets couldn't be inserted in
those areas using the shipyard's crane-mounted hydraulic equipment. The metallurgists said
those low-grade rivets would have ripped apart more easily during the collision, causing the
ship to sink more quickly

4. Does the manufacturing process or the chemical composition have any influence over
the incident?

The chemical analysis of the steel from the hull is given in figure 2.

Figure 2: Chemical composition of Titanic’s steel

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Assignment 1 Engineering failures

The analysis of the material composition points out the following facts;

• Very low nitrogen content- the steel was not made by the Bessemer process; such
steel would have a high nitrogen content that would have made it very brittle,
particularly at low temperatures. In the early 20th century, the only other method for
making structural steel was the open-hearth process.
• The fairly high oxygen and low silicon content - the steel has only been partially
deoxidized, yielding a semi-killed steel.
• The phosphorus content is slightly higher than normal, while the sulfur content is
quite high, accompanied by a low manganese content. This yielded a Mn:S ratio of
6.8:1-a very low ratio by modern standards.
• The presence of relatively high amounts of phosphorous, oxygen, and sulfur has a
tendency to embrittle the steel at low temperatures.
• There is a high probability that the steel used in the Titanic was made in an acid-
lined open-hearth furnace, which accounts for the fairly high phosphorus and high
sulfur content.
• The lining of the basic open-hearth furnace will react with phosphorus and sulfur to
help remove these two impurities from the steel. It is likely that all or most of the
steel came from Glasgow, Scotland

5. Is there any relation between the water temperature with the metal fracture? Explain
in detail.

Figure 3: Impact energy comparison

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The transition temperature is marked for each series of samples and is defined as that
temperature where the sample exhibited 20 ft-lbs (27 J.) of energy. The transition temperatures
for the Titanic steel are much above the water temperature of -2o C at the time of the ship-
iceberg collision. At -2o C the impact energy of the Titanic hull steel is close to 0. The
composition of steel used in the construction of Titanic’s hull which made it extremely brittle
at the water temperature (-2oC). Figure 3 shows a plot of the impact energy measured by the
Charpy test versus temperature for two different orientations for the Titanic hull steel, as well
as modern A36. The uncertainty in the data is unknown.

6. Analysing all the facts, what is your opinion on the tragic incident of RMS Titanic?
What are the factors you think influenced of the disaster?
Even a century later, the case of the Titanic illustrates how technological failures often
result from a succession of omissions, missteps and bad luck rather than one big mess-up.
There are many factors influenced the incident such and environmental, engineering, human
factors which lead to the drastic collision and failure of RMS Titanic. The environmental
factors are;
• Reverse thrust-reduced the ship's maneuverability
• Climate caused more icebergs
• Tides sent icebergs southward

The engineering factors are;

• The steel used for the ship was brittle at low temperatures (-2oC)
• Partially deoxidized steel makes large grain size and makes the steel of low toughness
and high DBTT
• The rivets used were weak
• There were too few lifeboats
• The binoculars were locked up

Human factors are;

• The ship was going too fast

• Iceberg warnings went unheeded
• The steersman took a wrong turn

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Assignment 1 Engineering failures

7. Do you think Boeing 767 got enough impact energy to create a catastrophic collapse of
WTC? Explain your result as per engineering analysis.

Steel beams from the World Trade Center generally met or exceeded design strength
requirements. The interaction between the impacting and impacted components is
considered by monitoring the contact force and comparing the magnitudes of the forces
required to instantaneously deform one or the other. Buildings were meant to withstand
impact of a Boeing 707 same amount of fuels as 767. As a result of the collision steel did
not melt but may have been in the austenitic phase field (above eutectoid temperature of
727oC) as a result severe weakening due to creep happened to the steel columns and finally
buckling leads to pan cake model collapse. Taking the estimated airplane mass at the point
of impact to be M = 127 tons and the impact velocity of Vo = 240m/s, the energy of the
striking aircraft was E kinetic = 3658MJ. Energy of impact was much lower than that of the
burning fuel of the aircraft. Impact force is at least 30 times mass of floors above impact.
This is enough for the catastrophic collapse of the towers. The orientation of the collision at
the north and south tower are shown below.

Figure 4: Orientation of the collision

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8. What is the most convincing theory that explain the caused collapse of WTC?

The most convincing theory that explain the caused collapse of WTC is
• Thermal stresses may also have played a role that means the steel was cool from outside
and quite hot inside.
• Floors above impact may have caused significant damage to steel joints, with very
falling floor, during collapse.
• As a result of the collision steel did not melt but may have been in the austenitic phase
field (above eutectoid temperature of 727oC) as a result severe weakening due to creep
happened to the steel columns and finally buckling leads to pan cake model collapse.

9. What is the primary reason of the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster? If you were an
engineer in that project, how you would prevent the incident?
The primary cause of the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster was a piece of foam that had
fallen off the Shuttle's external fuel tank during launch. The foam struck the left wing of
the shuttle, causing serious damage that ultimately led the vehicle to disintegrate when the
shuttle re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
If I was an engineer at that project I would have done the followings to prevent the
incident;
• Increase shuttle's ability to sustain minor debris damage.
• Carbon/carbon composite leading edge should be tailored for higher impact
damage/oxidation resistance.
• More frequent inspections (after flights) of leading edge would have conducted
• Upgrade imaging system so it can provide a more useful views of shuttle at lift-off.

10. What we have learned from the failures explained above? What are the steps you
recommend to avoid further incident?

From the above discussed failures, microstructure-property relationships are the key to
understanding material behaviour. To avoid further incidents the following measures can
be done;
• Properly study about the material and its properties to design anything.
• Do not leave anything as silly
• Communicate and collaborate with engineers from other disciplines (civil, mechanical
engineers).

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Assignment 1 Engineering failures

• Make general public and public officials aware of the importance of engineering
materials to our society (outreach).
• Continue to conduct research/engineering of structural materials.

References:
• Olympic-British ship
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Olympic
• The Royal Mail Ship Titanic: Did a Metallurgical Failure Cause a Night to Remember
https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9801/felkins-9801.html
• Metallurgy of the RMS Titanic
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-
17a17f71ae2f9d4316c52e62d4650c9f/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-
17a17f71ae2f9d4316c52e62d4650c9f.pdf
• Aircraft Impact Damage
http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf