Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/122

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC full width of the ship, was of unusual depth and strength. Throughout the ship, its depth was 5 feet 3 inches; but in the reciprocating engine-room, it was increased to 6 feet 3 inches. The keel consisted of a single thickness of plating, 1½ inches thick, and a heavy, flat bar, 3 inches in thickness and 19½ inches wide. Generally speaking, the shell plates were 6 feet wide, 30 feet long, and 2½ 2 to 3 tons in weight. The largest of these plates was 36 feet long and weighed 4¼ tons.

Amidships, the framing, which consisted of channel sections 10 inches in depth, was spaced 3 feet apart. Throughout the boiler-room spaces, additional frames, 2½ feet deep, were fitted 9 feet apart, and in the engine- and turbine-rooms, similar deep frames were fitted on every second frame, 6 feet apart. These heavy web-frames extended up to the middle deck, a few feet above the water-line, and added greatly to the strength and stiffness of the hull.

Had the inside plating of the double bottom been carried up the sides and riveted on the inner flanges of these frames, as shown in the sketch on page 107, it would have served the purpose of an inner skin; and when the outer [ 100 ]