Approximately, how many rivets were hammered into the massive hull of the British passenger liner RMS Titanic?

Approximately, three million rivets were hammered into the massive hull of the British passenger liner RMS Titanic. The 46,000-ton ship was made of steel and both its beams and plates were secured by its rivets. Each rivet was formed at a factory into a mushroom shape; it was heated at the worksite to incandescent temperatures and then inserted into the aligned holes of plates and beams. The glowing-hot end, or tail, was then hammered down to lock the parts firmly together.

The rivets were made of wrought iron, which contained some slag, usually a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. This contaminant has always been useful because pure iron is very ductile, bending easily without breaking. Slag gives it added strength.

Suspicions of rivet failure have long haunted the famous disaster, along with other possible culprits. Questions of any detective work however turned away from rivets after expeditions in the late 1980s and early 1990s picked up Titanic parts and artefacts. Analysis showed that the hull plates were made of mediocre steel that was apt to fracture in cold water, suggesting that the iceberg caused wide cracking.