A few years back (like a decade) while my mother worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, they had recovered pieces of the Titanic there which were being tested. They had a piece of hull plating and some rivets. What they found was that the Irish hull plating was stronger than the rivets, but more importantly, the rivets became brittle long before the steel in the cold Atlantic. They determined that the side swiping of the berg cause the rivets to pop, thus unzipping the seams, which cause the great degree of flooding.

The findings even made the news, and somewhere, I have the clipping from the paper. I'll have to see if I can dig it out. This may be old news for some of you, but I thought I'd share it.

Daniel