An earlier History Channel Program suggest that the expansion joints may have been a problem.
Titanic expansion joints may be problematic. History Channel show on subject. Titanic's Achilles Heel
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Did Titanic have a fatal design flaw? In August of 2005 John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (of "Deep Sea Detectives") led an expedition to Titanic, where they discovered two huge intact sections of the ship's bottom, the red paint still on. Naval architect Roger Long, along with a panel of experts concluded that Titanic broke apart earlier in its sinking than has been believed, due to a previously unknown design flaw. Chatterton and Kohler return to the wreck in 2006 searching for evidence to support this theory, but when their research vessel is recalled by the Russian government they head to Greece to dive Titanic's lost sister ship Britannic. Was Britannic quietly modified to correct the problem?
Rating: TVPG
Running Time: 120 minutes
I have sailed has Chief Engineer on a T2 Tanker in 1992 (WW2 era ship with riveted construction) that was built with similar steel where cold water embrittlement was a problem along with the wrought iron rivets, the paper A Marine Forensics Analysis of the RMS Titanic by William H. Garzke, Jr. (Gibbs & Cox, Inc.) Dr. Timothy Foecke (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Paul Matthias (Polaris Imaging) David Wood (Marine Forensics Panel, SD-7) details the events of the sinking.
