Breathing Equipment for Scuba Diving
By Lilah Tusko
Today's scuba divers are lucky that technological advances have given them breathing equipment designed to facilitate a safe and healthy scuba diving experience. About a century ago, scuba divers had to breathe underwater using long tubes or sacks of air or such other methods. As you can imagine, there were problems and perils associated with such devices compared to the pressurized tanks and valve regulators that modern divers use.
For every 10 m (33 feet) deep that you dive, the pressure increases by 14.7 lbs. Obviously your chest and lung muscles have to work overtime to counteract this and your lung air is compressed. If you were to breathe free surface air which has a steady pressure of 1 atmosphere (14.7 lbs), you would find it difficult to counteract the outside pressure. Thus, you need pressurized air when you are underwater.
Remember that the gases inside the body get slightly compressed as you dive deeper. Seal level air comprises about 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen with traces of other gases. This ratio is inadequate underwater where your oxygen requirement is greater in order to balance the outside pressure. Modern equipment is designed to provide the right gas ratios and pressures required by divers at various depths.
The other problem is to do with the diving masks used by most recreational scuba divers. These masks force the diver to wrap his moth around the mouthpiece of the regulator and breathe mostly through their as the nose and eyes are enclosed. Upon inhalation, you take in 21% oxygen in the air. While exhaling, you give out air that is roughly 18% oxygen and 3% carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide may not be as toxic as carbon monoxide, but if the concentration of carbon dioxide increases, it will affect the levels of oxygen intake ultimately leading to oxygen starvation.
Disorientation, light-headedness and in the extreme situation, even death can be a result of oxygen starvation. Regulator/tank systems release the exhaled gas into the water, solving this problem.
Underwater breathing is largely through the mouth as nose breathing would open the mask to water and fog the glass. The same mouthpiece and hose is used for inhalation as well as exhalation. The equipment uses some ingenious engineering to expel the exhaled carbon dioxide to the surroundings.
The open circuit 2-stage scuba diving regulators used in today's breathing equipment deliver air to the diver matching the surrounding pressure. Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau originally developed this Aqua-lung design using one-stage scuba diving regulators. The air pressure in the tank is about 200 atm. The 2-stage design allows you to reduce the air pressure to around 10 atm using the first stage regulator. In stage two, the regulator matches the air pressure to the ambient pressure, delivering the optimal pressure to the lungs of the diver.
Modern breathing equipment provides healthy, safe, pressure regulated air to modern scuba divers. This is a result of the years of effort and ingenuity shown by scuba gear designers over the last century.
About the Author
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