willydiver
Guest
OK, let's throw this one out just for kicks and the sake of interesting conversation.
Imagine your tank/compressed air are at 50F due to the temperature of the water your are diving in. So, you are breathing from a "cooled" tank. Assume the breath of air delivered from your regulator to your lungs is warmed during the path from your mouth to your lungs, to around 98.6F.
Does this mean that the air has expanded by the time it reaches your lungs, thus a slight increase in pressure (inside the lungs) is realized? Will this additional expansion of air result in the taking of smaller breaths from the regulator? Won't this counteract some of the "lost pressure" syndrome encountered with a cooled tank? After all, the important thing with breathing at depth is the pressure inside your lungs to counteract the surrounding water pressure.
Think about this, too. Cooled air (outside of a fixed volume) is more dense than warm air. If you are breathing cooled air, aren't you taking in a higher concentration of oxygen molecules per breath? Won't this translate into your body requiring slower breathing (less air demand) for a given activity. Will this also counteract some of the "cooled tank" syndrome?
I turned off my common sense switch while blurting this out, so don't blast me too bad if it doesn't make sense at all. In reality, I think the changes in volume/density are so small as to not matter.
WD
Imagine your tank/compressed air are at 50F due to the temperature of the water your are diving in. So, you are breathing from a "cooled" tank. Assume the breath of air delivered from your regulator to your lungs is warmed during the path from your mouth to your lungs, to around 98.6F.
Does this mean that the air has expanded by the time it reaches your lungs, thus a slight increase in pressure (inside the lungs) is realized? Will this additional expansion of air result in the taking of smaller breaths from the regulator? Won't this counteract some of the "lost pressure" syndrome encountered with a cooled tank? After all, the important thing with breathing at depth is the pressure inside your lungs to counteract the surrounding water pressure.
Think about this, too. Cooled air (outside of a fixed volume) is more dense than warm air. If you are breathing cooled air, aren't you taking in a higher concentration of oxygen molecules per breath? Won't this translate into your body requiring slower breathing (less air demand) for a given activity. Will this also counteract some of the "cooled tank" syndrome?
I turned off my common sense switch while blurting this out, so don't blast me too bad if it doesn't make sense at all. In reality, I think the changes in volume/density are so small as to not matter.
WD