Argon ???

[sharkmasterbc]

Thoughts ? Anyone tried argon instead of just air for the drysuit? More interested in the recreational divers than the tekkies ('cause from what I hear trimix sux as an insulator).

I have found that at depth there is no cold shot of air on your chest as you inflate, dunno if it's just placebo but you never know.

 

[Paul Evans]

Thoughts ? Anyone tried argon instead of just air for the drysuit? More interested in the recreational divers than the tekkies ('cause from what I hear trimix sux as an insulator).

I have found that at depth there is no cold shot of air on your chest as you inflate, dunno if it's just placebo but you never know.

Argon is approx 50% more effective in its insulating abilities than air. But this is very misleading, you will not feel 50% warmer!!!!, But you will use less energy to maintain core body temperture, as it takes longer for body heat to diserpate in an Argon enviroment.(Argon is less conductive than air).
Unless you are diving in extremely cold conditions for a long time the advantages are outwayed by the cost of the system and its maintinace.
If you do use it the suit must be purged to get rid of most of the air on land first, it takes several cycles to achive this using a lot of Argon in the process.

There are other threads on this do a search on Argon.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Argon conducts heat about 2/3rd's as efficiently as air so argon is only about 1/3 more effective than air. And that presumes you purge 100% of the air from your suit prior to the dive.

In my experience when diving with air you can get the same increase in warmth that you would have gotten with argon by using slightly heavier underwear and just a bit more air in the suit.

To me it does not make sense to bother with argon unless you are using trimix where the high conductivity of helium is a problem. But for many people it is worth it as they feel warmer, even if it is largely a placebo effect.

 

[Paul Evans]

Argon conducts heat about 2/3rd's as efficiently as air so argon is only about 1/3 more effective than air. And that presumes you purge 100% of the air from your suit prior to the dive.

In my experience when diving with air you can get the same increase in warmth that you would have gotten with argon by using slightly heavier underwear and just a bit more air in the suit.

To me it does not make sense to bother with argon unless you are using trimix where the high conductivity of helium is a problem. But for many people it is worth it as they feel warmer, even if it is largely a placebo effect.

Sorry, I stand corrected

 

[perpet1]

If diving air then the benifit of argon is not worth the time and effort. If diving trimix then there is a huge benifit because He will cause you to get MUCH colder faster and as such you seek an alternative gas (argon) for your drysuit.

Specific heat capacity:
Argon 0.520 J/g-K
air 1.05 J/g-K
He 5.193 J/g-K

As you can see with air you are onle getting a 2x benifit but when you are using He you realize a 10x benifit. Or more to the point is you were ding trimix the He in the gas would server to prevent you from keeping warm. This is misleading since trimix is not pure He but you can see that when you introduce He the amount ot heat transfer will increase very fast.

Some people dive Argon all the time a claim the differencee is incredible. There is a thread here somplace that has a post that is perfect because it says..... that which makes you think you are warmer will make you warmer. Being cold has a lot to do with how you think you are doing. If using argon makes you think you are warmer you will be warmer.

Pete

 

[yknot]

I have found that at depth there is no cold shot of air on your chest as you inflate, dunno if it's just placebo but you never know.

Don't think that there would be any noticable diff. between argon and air if both were coming from a cold tank. I did see a study done by the Norwegien navy in which they were very scientific in how they measured the differences between air and argon. There was VERY little diff. at recreational times and depths.

 

[Don Burke]

I have found that at depth there is no cold shot of air on your chest as you inflate, dunno if it's just placebo but you never know.

I have found that flushing the suit with argon and using air for suit inflation during the dive works fairly well. It is not a substitute for poor insulation.

For shallow work like prop changes, I use welding shield gas that has 25% CO2 in it for flushing.