ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

Engineering Analysis of Titanic's Construction and Sister Ships

cultural-heritage · 2026-03-19

A video by engineering professor Bill Hammack explores the construction of the RMS Titanic and its sister ships Olympic and Britannic. Using historical documents from The Engineer journal published between 1909-1911, Hammack details the massive scale of these White Star Line vessels, including their three million rivets, 52,000-ton weight, and daily coal consumption. The video also notes that Olympic survived a collision and served for decades, while Britannic sank in 1916, contrasting with Titanic's famous 1912 iceberg disaster.

Key facts

  • Bill Hammack, an engineering professor at University of Illinois, created a video analyzing Titanic's construction
  • The video uses photographs from The Engineer journal published 1909-1911 showing Titanic and Olympic being built
  • Titanic was one of three White Star Line ships completed in early 1910s along with Olympic and Britannic
  • Each ship required three million rivets and weighed 52,000 tons when fully fitted
  • Olympic survived a collision and served nearly 25 years while Britannic sank in 1916 and Titanic sank in 1912

Entities

Institutions

  • White Star Line
  • University of Illinois

Sources