High Pressure State Simulation Studies as an Aid to Understanding Diving Problems

Some of the earliest biological system models used to guide the affairs of man were employed to avoid the ``bends´´ in diving. A brief discussion of decompression sickness, as it can affect tunnel workers, airplane pilots, or divers, is given, along with an analog computer configuration to represent the situation. The configuration itself has proved helpful in aiding engineers to understand some of the mechanisms involved, and the recordings that result seem helpful in supplying to physiologists and divers a feeling for the probable effect of a change in circumstances associated with a proposed dive. The effect of changing a gas mixture or changing the time course of a dive is readily visualized, for example, as are the results of using a continuously variable gas mixture and continuous ascent for minimum decompression time.