New US Navy Diving Suits Conserve Helium For Longer Missions

Diving can be a serious business, and no one takes it more seriously than the US Navy. Working to engineer a new diving suit, the Navy has come up with a new design that will be safer, lighter weight, and most importantly the suits are designed to conserve helium which is a precious resource. The new diving suits are part of the US Navy's Initial Response Diving (IRD) project which is engineering new ways for divers to reach salvage targets up to 600 feet deep.

When divers breathe regulated air at intense depths, they breathe a mixture of oxygen and helium, as the components of natural air are toxic to inhale at such pressures. Just like most natural resources, helium is not unlimited, and the earth is actually facing a global helium shortage at the moment.

The previous model suit employs a Fly-Away Mixed Gas System (FMGS) which provides breathing gas (a mix of oxygen and helium) to diver's open-circuit, demand-regulated helmet through an umbilical cord. Each time a diver exhales, all of their breath is ventilated into the surrounding sea which wastes oxygen and helium.

As this prototype aims to conserve helium, such preservation will also lower operational costs for fleets using the new suits. Lower helium requirements mean that less deck space is needed to house the suits, and smaller vessels can be deployed for salvage missions. The conservation of helium also has a dramatic impact on safety as it extends the life support system's "emergency come-home gas" duration. Now, divers have a longer window of time to surface in case of emergency as they work on missions like sub-sea infrastructure maintenance or recovering sensitive materials from sunken ships.

VIA: Engadget