They found no difference in efficiency between the two. That's the critical point. No. Difference.
That's not what the conclusion says at all, if you actually read it. I quoted it in the post above if you don't want to actually look at the document. They found trimix was no worse than helitrox with the mixes they chose which (again) is a different argument than helitrox is no different in terms efficiency than trimix for all variations of mixtures. If you can't understand that logic then I'd rather not continue to argue about that particular study with you, since you can't seem to grasp how research papers work and can't understand basic Boolean logic (X >= Y; X could be greater than Y, X could equal Y, but X cannot equal Y until X >= Y is proven false).
If helium was better, heliox decompression would be more efficient than trimix diving.
That's a good hypothesis for another study, I agree. However, in this study they regarded their chosen trimix testing to be "no worse than" their chosen heliox mix. If they added more BT, or increased the FON2 of the trimix to a point that called into question the efficiency of heliox, the results would be a good basis for arguing for or against using heliox over trimix or vice versa. Again, all they proved was that trimix was no worse than heliox. They are choosing not to switch because they've been using heliox and the cost for the US Navy is neglible (also mentioned in the conclusion). They did NOT prove that heliox was as good as trimix, or better than trimix for decompression. Again, this goes back to understanding the null hypothesis.
I KNEW that you'd eventually mention that "deco strategy" nonsense. I knew it. And I always find these discussions amusing because there's a constant moving of the goalposts. Deco is longer than whatever UTD says? See, look how inadequate the algorithm is! Deco is shorter? This is the correct amount of decompression! So no matter what the UTD version is correct (albeit without a shred of evidence).
It's a matter of what deco church and practices you subscribe to. Consequently using the standard 20/85 Buhlmann model on a 100' dive for 30 minutes with 32% does not yield the same ascent profile as what GUE teaches in their min deco strategy. I wonder why that is? The min deco profile GUE teaches is actually shorter (5 min) and starts deeper. I'm not claiming the UTD version is correct or incorrect, but you seem insistent on assuming the GUE method is correct, which by extension you're saying the Buhlmann model is correct. I'd rather let the diver, and the reader decide. I don't think either is terribly worse than the other, I dive with GUE and UTD people regularly. That's why I trained with both, to understand both. I don't think you understand UTD very well and just assume the GUE method is the better one; you seem to just be anti-UTD.
Yea, you should know where min deco comes from. I'm surprised you don't given your expert knowledge of decompression (gained from who and during what class is a mystery).
It's a mystery to you because of what I mentioned above. Anyone who's taken a UTD OW, or Essentials of Recreational class would know I suppose.
