Bubble models for recreational profiles

[decidedlyodd]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, so mods please move if this would fit better elsewhere.

I just finished reading Powell's Deco for Divers. Interesting read with lots of good information, although it could use a second edition with some better editing for sure.

It seems like there's a lot of evidence supporting the use of a bubble model algorithm like VPM-B over Buhlmann ZHL16-B with gradient factors for decompression diving, but what about for minimum/no decompression recreational profiles?

 

[TSandM]

I think it's extremely difficult to prove that anything is "better" for recreational profiles, because the incidence of DCS is already so very low. It would take a lot of diving to show a difference between models. Marroni has done some work on ascent strategies, using Doppler grades as an endpoint, that showed that very fast and very slow ascents are both bad; the best is a medium rate ascent with stops. To me, this more or less supports the minimum deco approach, although that was not one of the strategies tested.