Physics of free flow at depth

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

fisherdvm

Contributor
Messages
3,577
Reaction score
52
# of dives
200 - 499
Only to focus on free flow from the first stage here, not at the regulator end.

Is it strictly a thermocline issue, that the water temperature dropped sufficiently low. Or does it have to do with the density of air at depth.

To me, it is a thermocline issue, with the water being a less efficient heat sink than usual. As it seems to me that at depth, the ratio of the tank pressure to the intermediate pressure of the hose is less. Since the tank pressure is constant, and the hose pressure is the pressure at depth plus 120-150 psi. Right?
 
Interesting question, one that is only of theoretical interest to me since I'm a confirmed warm water wuss.

As you descend, your actual air consumption increases proportional to the absolute pressure, while the pressure drop across the 1st stage change very little (the "constant" pressure of 120-150psi is constant with respect to ambient pressure, which increases 15psi every 33' -- but that is negligible compared to the couple thousand psi of drop across the reg).

Since the mass of air you are using is higher (for example, at 100/30 meters it will be 4 times that you use on the surface), my guess is that the total cooling effect in the 1st stage is 4 times greater at 100' than at the surface.
 
The most significant factor is the change in water temperature. Remember gas cools as it moves from high pressure to low pressure. (Have you ever seen a tank empty after a burst disk gives?) During ice dives I have seen 1st stage free flows at only a few feet below the ice.

I would actually suspect that the cooling effect would not be a drastic as you went deeper because the IP would be raising, and the tank's pressure would be lowering, thus the differential would not be a drastic

I have to run I'll check up on the thread later
 
It would make an interesting calculus problem.

The things to consider are:

1. Tank pressure is dropping as you go deeper and dive longer. With the lower tank pressure you have less total pressure drop and less adibatic cooling as the air pressure drops from tank pressure to ambient pressure.

2. Ambient pressure increases at about .5 psi per foot so as you decend from the surface to 100 ft the absolute pressure inside the intermediate air passages in the first stage will increase from about 140 psi to 190psi. That is a big percentage increase, but in the grand scheme of things, it is not much of an increase compared to changes in tank pressure - at least in terms of reducing adibatic cooling. (see #5 for the major issue this causes)

3. Water temperature may drop - a little to an awful lot depending on the body of water. I have seen a 1 or 2 degree difference per hundred feet in the ocean and I have seen the temp drop from 75 to 35 in a hundred feet in an alpine lake. As the water approaches the freezing point, the lower temperature gradient makes heat transfer from the water to the regulator less eficient. in my experience this starts to become critical when the gradient falls below about 10 to15 degrees depending on the regulator

4. Gas consumption increases with depth. At 100 feet you are using breathing gas at 4 atmospheres of pressure and that increase from 1 to 4 ATM has a linear effect on the adibatic cooling load placed on the regulator.

5. The increased intermediate and ambient pressure has no impact on the number of cubic feet a free flowing first stage will produce, but it does have a significant impact on the amount of flow a freeflowing second stage has at depth. The higher intermediate pressure upstream of the orifice combined with the higher ambient pressure on the downstream side of the orifice acts like a turbocharger and allows more mass to flow through an orifice of a given size at depth than at the surface. At 100' you will probably get about a 60% increase in flow volume compared to the surface.

6. The gas itself is "thicker" and more viscous but the effects of increased viscosity in air do not begin to become noticeable until you get upwards of 300 psi / 600 feet in depth. If you are at that depth on scuba, you got big problems even without a freeflow.

Of these factors 3 and 4 are the biggies in terms of promoting a freeze flow. # 3 is a given as if the water is codl enough it can cause a freeze flow just below the surface, while #4 can result in a reg that is otherwise well behaved at the surface freeflwing at depth. 1 and 2 will actually work to reduce adibatic cooling and 5 is only a factor once the freeze flow starts - but can be significant for two reasons. If the reg falls out of your mouth at depth (cold lips) with a flow vane set so as to produice a continuous freeflow, the greater flow at depth can quickly produce a freezeflow. I have also seen freeze flowing regs stop freeflowing on ascent due in part to warmer water and improved heat transfer and in part to the reduction in freeflow volume (and the reduction in additonal cooling that results). 6 is not a factor until you are already in serious trouble due to depth anyway and if you are at 600' intentionally you are on a helium mix and helium flows through regs much easier than air anyway, so it is back to being a non issue.
 
The most significant factor is the change in water temperature. Remember gas cools as it moves from high pressure to low pressure. (Have you ever seen a tank empty after a burst disk gives?) During ice dives I have seen 1st stage free flows at only a few feet below the ice.

I would actually suspect that the cooling effect would not be a drastic as you went deeper because the IP would be raising, and the tank's pressure would be lowering, thus the differential would not be a drastic

I have to run I'll check up on the thread later

This is only correct if the expansion goes fast enough to not allow any energy transfer between the gas and its surroundings, in which case you have an adiabatic process.
 
Last edited:
This is only correct if the expansion goes fast enough to not allow any energy transfer between the gas and its surroundings, in which case you have an adiabatic process.
It need not be adiabatic for the gas to cool. In practical application, it will be somewhere between adiabatic and isothermal.
 
It need not be adiabatic for the gas to cool. In practical application, it will be somewhere between adiabatic and isothermal.

Agreed, it is never perfectly adiabatic or perfectly isothermal. Cracking a tank valve to the barely open position will drain a tank pretty close to isothermally, a blown burst disc is gonna be pretty close to adiabatic.
 

Back
Top Bottom