Who is given credit for designing and developing oxygen/helium deepsea diving?

Question

I am researching deepsea diving history and am interested to have documentation on the development and commercialisation of the technique of helium/oxygen deepsea diving. I am looking for international references to the 1950's - 70's. Any Divers out there are welcome to contribute, but especially from that period!

Answer 1

Al Gore. He invented the internet too.

In 1919, Professor Elihu Thompson, an electronics engineer and inventor, speculated that nitrogen narcosis could be avoided if the oxygen in the breathing mix were diluted with a gas other than nitrogen. Thompson had previously established a record as an innovator with seven hundred patents including electric welding, the centrifugal cream separator and street arc lights. His business had earlier merged with Thomas Edison's company to form General Electric. He suggested that helium would be a suitable gas for deep diving without narcosis. Since at the time, the price of helium was over $2500 per cubic foot, the suggestion was viewed as an economic impossibility. About this time C.J. Cooke applied for a patent on the use of Helium as a breathing gas mix. Additionally a series of experimental dives was begun on the U.S.S. Falcon, which included at least one dive to 150 feet on a heliox mix. Later, the discovery of helium in four Texas natural gas wells gave the United States an exclusive monopoly on the world's supply of helium. Its abundance dropped the price of helium to a few cents per cubic foot.

Thompson convinced the Bureau of Mines, which controlled the world's supply of helium (and was desperately seeking some use for this gas), and the US Navy to begin examining the potential for deep diving using helium and oxygen as a breathing gas mix. By 1925 a lab had been established in Pittsburgh and lab animals were doing simulated dives in a chamber using helium-oxygen mixes. This work established that animals breathing an 80 % helium / 20% oxygen mix could be decompressed at 1/6 the decompression time of an air breathing animal. Later, humans subjects breathing 80% helium / 20% oxygen were found to have no apparent problems with heliox decompression schedules that were 1/4 the time required for air breathing dives. More importantly, however, was the ability for humans to function "clear-headed" at depths where air-breathing divers were incapacitated by nitrogen narcosis. Thompson's second major contribution to deep diving followed this early effort. He suggested that since the helium was not consumed during the dive, it could be conserved by use of a re-circulating system for the diluent gas. His idea would ultimately prove sound; it needed only the development of high efficiency absorbents to remove the carbon dioxide generated from human metabolism so that the exhaled gas could be re-circulated.

Divers commented on the ease of breathing helium, but noticed that they always felt chilled while breathing heliox mixes. The change in voice characteristics often made communication at depth difficult. It was apparent that the narcosis free advantage of helium breathing would create problems as well as solutions. It was obvious that much work still needed to be done.

Funding for deep diving training was very difficult to obtain in the post World War I economy. Although the US Navy Experimental Diving School in Newport, Rhode Island had successfully trained divers that had salvaged the sunken submarine F-4 in 304 feet of water off Amala Bay near Honolulu, Hawaii in 1915, Congress could not be convinced to provide the funds for continuing the US Navy Experimental Diving School in Newport. This school had, before the First World War, conducted over three hundred test dives on air to depths of 258 feet. This work was the foundation for the first diving manual published in 1924 by the Bureau of Construction and Repair.

On September 25, 1925, the submarine S-51 sank after a collision with the S.S. City of Rome near Block Island in 132 feet of water. Since the Navy had not had the funds to maintain their deep diving training program and associated submarine rescue proficiency, the salvage of this vessel took many months. (There simply were not enough divers qualified to dive below 90 feet. Bad weather and extreme cold also hampered the salvage effort.) Despite the disaster and modest public inquiry, funding was still denied. However, the public began to slowly build interest in improving the Navy's ability to function at deeper depths.

In 1927 another sub, the S-4 sank in 102 feet of water with loss of all forty men. One sad aspect of this disaster is that six men survived the sinking and their taps on the hull could be heard by divers working to raise the vessel. For a short time, two-way communication via rapping on the hull existed until, eventually, the taps from inside the hull ceased. The salvage operation lasted for over three months. An indignant public began to demand an improved Navy capability. As a result, the Navy established an Experimental Diving School in Washington, D.C. The two primary missions were to develop diving techniques to limit the effects of nitrogen narcosis and to develop rapid, effective methods for the rescue of crew trapped inside sunken submarines.

One significant early achievement of this Navy research unit was the development of the McCann rescue bell. This was a diving bell or chamber that could be lowered on cable to mate with the escape hatch on a submarine. Once attached, the water in the chamber between the bell and the submarine could be blown away by the use of compressed air. This then allowed trapped submariners to open their hatch and move into the rescue bell. The bell hatch could be closed and the chamber pulled back to the surface by winch. This bell would prove itself as this rescue device saved many trapped submariners.

In the late 1930's, an intern at Milwaukee County General Hospital, Edgar End, investigated the use of helium and oxygen as a breathing gas mix. His friend, Max Gene Nohl, an MIT graduate student, had developed with the assistance of John Craig (later of "Danger Is My Business" television fame), a new type of diving helmet. This helmet was part of a self-contained helium-oxygen system with on-board scrubbing of carbon dioxide that had been developed with the goal of photographing the Lusitania in 312 feet of water. During their pre-expedition trials, they were able to work at 312 feet for up to two hours with only three brief stops on their thirty minutes ascent to the surface. When the expedition to photograph the Lusitania was abandoned, it was decided to attempt a world depth record. On a cold December day in 1937 the self-contained heliox helmet was tested in near-by Lake Michigan. Max Nohl set the world's depth record at 420 feet. The dive was conducted using a suit that was definitely not conventional. The diver wore a fashionable rubber coverall with Eskimo-like mukluks boots and a helmet that was described as looking like a lighthouse top with windows on all sides. The diver wore two self-contained tanks of breathing gas.

About the same time, the US Navy research program began gathering significant momentum under the guidance of Behneke and Yarbrough. They successfully completed a simulated chamber dive to 500 feet using heliox. It is interesting to note that during the Navy tank dive, the diver did not know his depth. When asked about his depth, the diver replied, "It feels like a hundred feet." During his decompression, the diver was told his actual maximum depth.

This success prompted the Navy to increase investigative efforts in the use of helium in diving gas mixes. By 1939 experimental research was a reality when the submarine, U.S.S. Squalus, sank off the Isles of Shoals in 243 feet of cold North Atlantic water. Since the submarine had been quickly located, there was a frantic effort to rescue the men trapped on board. A downhaul cable (for the McCann Rescue Bell) had parted and a diver on compressed air had been unable, due to the crippling effects of nitrogen narcosis, to repair the cable. It was decided to try the new helium-oxygen mixture. A diver on heliox was successful. The McCann rescue bell made four trips in twelve hours to the sunken submarine and 33 men were successfully rescued. The submarine was then salvaged. The US Navy conducted over 100 dives without injury in the rescue/salvage effort. The U.S.S. Squalus, renamed the Sailfish, served in World War II. The rescue of thirty-three men and the successful salvage of the Squalus demonstrated to the US Navy and the American public that heliox was a viable protocol for deep diving operations. The successful rescue of these trapped men and the subsequent salvage of the sunken vessel are considered to be two of the most significant accomplishments in the history of marine life saving and salvage operations. The completion of the Squalus salvage and the appearance of war clouds on the horizon prompted Congress to increase the funding for US Navy deep diving training and research. Incidentally, Congress, fearing both the ingenuity of German research under the political control of Adolph Hitler and the use of helium in lighter-than-air dirigibles, prohibited the export of helium. For the next twenty years the US Navy, with the world's sole supply of helium, was the primary user/investigator of heliox as a breathing gas mix.

Jack Browne, devised a triangular lightweight mask and tested his system in 1946. Diving in a pressurized tank, with decompression guidance from End and Behnke, he did a simulated dive of 550 feet.

Following the Second World War, the British, using helium that had been obtained with the approval of the US Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Defense and the US President, began experimenting with heliox mixtures. In some of their first dives, the divers developed extreme claustrophobia during diving and in screaming fits demanded to be hauled out of the water. Although the physiologists were convinced that the oxygen concentrations were too high and thus the source of the problems, the divers blamed the helium. It was referred to as "Yankee gas" or "Stuka juice." (The Stuka was a German dive-bomber used during WW II.)

The British diving experiments were conducted from the vessel Reclaim. This vessel anchored near a vertical wall in Loch Fyne that bottomed out at 540 feet. Since the Olympics were being held in London, Captain Shelford devised a "diver's depth thermometer" and sent divers on eighteen dives, each deeper than the previous. The depth's reached were recorded on the "thermometer." A Diver's torch was created and each new depth reached was rewarded with the diver receiving the "Olympic torch." The diver would accept the torch and run a victory lap around the vessel while wearing diving boots. Using nearly all of the remaining British supply of helium, Diver First Class Wilfred Bollard took 7 1/2 minutes to descend to a new world record depth of 540 feet. After 5 minutes on the bottom the diver took 8 hours and twenty-six minutes to ascend (descent time was increased because of a three hour treatment for the bends; the diver suffered elbow pain when transferring from the Davis submersible decompression chamber (which he had entered at 190 feet) to the main decompression chamber at 30 feet.) After leaving the decompression chamber he received the "torch" from the "hand" of a Neufeldt and Kuhnke armored diving suit. Since this state-of-the-art suit was rated to 500 feet, Bollard scratched "OUT OF DATE" on the suit and then did his victory lap!

In 1968 Heliox entered the world of "amateur" cave diving. A group of BSAC divers primarily from Rhodesia and South Africa, spent more than year assembling gear, support equipment and personnel to dive the Silent Pool in Sinoia, Rhodesia. Divers Roly Nyman, lan Robertson, John van der Walt and Danny van der Walt dove to 340 fff on Tri-Mix (Nitrogen 41.6%: Helium 40 %: 18.4% Oxygen) while exploring the muddy bottom of this famous sink-hole.

In 1970, ex-Navy diver Tom Mount brought heliox into American scientific diving at the University of Miami Rosenteil School of Marine Science. About the same time, Hal Watts, in Florida, experimented with heliox for deep cave operations.

Dale Sweet, in 1980, used heliox to reach 360 feet in the cave Die Polder #2. Although six months later, Sheck Exeley made the same dive on compressed air, the cave diving community was beginning to notice the existence of mixed gases for deep explorations. It would take three years, but in 1981, a German cave diver, Jochen Hasenmayer, descended into the French Vaucluse to reach a depth of 476 feet using heliox. This was a new world record for a surface-to-surface scuba dive. In 1983, Jochen made another heliox dive. This dive was to 685 feet and another world record.

Answer 2

this is precisely a similar way i'm. I continuously discover myself crediting something else. i think like I must be extra pleased with what i've got carried out. much less complicated mentioned than completed some days. good question.

Answer 3

you might also wish to consider the father of diving, jaques cousteau who first concered the ocean depths, who gave us future divers the wisdom to learn how to dive properly

Answer 4

DEAR,
THANK YOU ---JMORRIS 4--- FROM DEEP OF MY HEART.
I AM JUST A DIVER , BUT YOUR ANSWER IS SO VALUABLE.