The Engineering Hub

The Fatal Flaw of the Liberty Ships

The first 1,000 people to use my link will get a full year of Premium membership to Woodworkers Guild of America for only $1.49: https://go.wwgoa.com/theengineeringhub/ This video investigates the fatal fracture failures of the Liberty Ships during World War 2. The Liberty Ship had a huge design flaw that made their hulls susceptible to fast fractures. The Maritime Commission investigated the problem bout could not figure out cause so they instead blamed the welds as being of insufficient quality. Today we know that the answer lies in the fracture toughness of the steel used for these vessels. More specifically, the ductile-to-brittle transition that happens when the temperature drops significantly. References: [1] C. J. Tassava, "Weak seams: Controversy over welding theory and practice in American shipyards, 1938-1946," History of Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 87-108, 2003. [2] Smithsonian, "Model, Liberty Ship," National Museum of American History, [Online]. Available: https://www.si.edu/object/model-liberty-ship%3Anmah_842604#:~:text=While%20it%20took%20about%20230,launched%20each%20day%20in%201943.. [Accessed 21 October 2024]. [3] The Secretary of the Navy, "The Design and Methods of Construction of Welded Steel Merchant Vessels," The Secretary of the Navy, Washington, 15 July, 1946. [4] Y. Okumoto, Y. Takeda, M. Mano and T. Okada, Design of Ship Hull Structures, Berlin: Springer, 2009. [5] K. Zappas, "Constance Tipper Cracks the Case of the Liberty Ships," The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, vol. 67, no. 12, pp. 1697-1699, 2015. [6] W. Zhang, "Technical Problem Identification for the Failures of the Liberty Ships," Challenges, vol. 7, no. 20, 2016. [7] M. Harris, W. Grogg, A. Akoma and B. Hayes, "Revisiting (Some of) the Lasting Impacts of the Liberty Ships via Metallurgical Analysis of Rivets from the SS ‘‘John W. Brown," The Journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society , vol. 67, pp. 2965-2975, 2015. This video was sponsored by Woodworkers Guild of America