Saturation diving

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Saturation diver works on the wreck of the USS Monitor at a depth of 70 m
Saturation diver directs deep-sea rescue

Saturation diving is a term used in professional diving . With saturation diving, the problem of increased decompression times during deep dives is countered. One uses the fact that the gas uptake of the organism is limited at some point with increased pressure. After a certain period of time under high water pressure , the body is saturated; an extension of the diving time does not lead to an even longer decompression time. Since the decompression time z. B. after a dive to 200 m depth can be up to seven days, it can not be spent in the water. Nowadays, an overpressure chamber is used for this purpose , which simulates a gradual ascent of around 30 m per day.

principle

Dives beyond the no-stop time , due to dive time or depth, require decompression . In principle, the longer the dive and the higher the pressure, the more time has to be spent on decompression. Since decompression involves loss of time and additional effort ( breathing gas , repetitive dives , safety), a (simple) decompression dive is possible, but not always useful.

If the maximum saturation of the gases in the body is reached after some time in the depth, the necessary decompression time remains constant. From the point of view of decompression it is then irrelevant whether the dive duration is a few hours or a few days.

Since the discovery and research of saturation diving from the 1960s and the research into gas mixtures, corresponding working techniques have also been developed. The traditional “wet” decompression (step-by-step ascent) is ruled out due to the long decompression time (hours or days). After experiments in and with underwater stations (e.g. Conshelf, Helgoland , Precontinent) and other "dry" experiments, the following working method was developed:

  • stationary pressure chambers on the escort ship for compression and decompression
  • Diver transport with diving bell under pressure
  • Diver transport with work submarine (diving compartment under pressure)
  • Work on site

history

On December 22, 1938, Edgar End and Maximilian Eugene Nohl made the first scheduled saturation dive by breathing 27 hours of air at 30.8 meters (101 ft.) In the recompression facility at the County Emergency Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her decompression lasted five hours, during which Nohl developed a mild case of decompression sickness that was treated with recompression.

Peter B. Bennett conducted an experiment called Atlantis III on Trimix 10 at Duke University Medical Center in 1981 , which took divers to a simulated depth of 685.8 meters (2,250 ft.) Where they were 4.5 Lingered for days and then slowly decompressed back over 40 days.

Application offshore and future

Saturation diving continues to be one of the definitive offshore diving work methods. In recent years and decades there has been the use of work submarines , robots or automatic machines ( ROVs ) and armored diving suits . By combining all methods, the risks for the diver can be minimized, the workload can be optimized and the costs reduced.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The People Who Built DESCO - Founders of Diving Equipment Company DESCO, accessed on September 14 2018th
  2. ↑ Camporesi, Enrico M: The Atlantis Series and Other Deep Dives . In: Divers Alert Network (eds.): In: Moon RE, Piantadosi CA, Camporesi EM (eds.). Dr. Peter Bennett Symposium Proceedings. Held May 1, 2004. Durham, NC: . 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2011.