H2Andy
Contributor
i cheat on this stuff... i google it 
So how does a rebreather work/ what does it do?
- Thread starter EuphoriaII
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MoonWrasse
Contributor
Speaking of Cousteau, his TV series is scheduled to be released a week from now on DVD.
caveseeker7
Contributor
Yeah right. You just say that because you want to appear young and smart.H2Andy:i cheat on this stuff... i google it
Yup, Cousteau had close calls two or three times on rebreathers.MoonWrasse:And becuase of these problems, Jacques Cousteau was forced to develop the open circuit model around WW2. A little curiosity goes a long way
In all fairness, most of the problems were not caused by faulty rigs, but by lack of knowledge using them. I watched the 1952 Hans Hass documentary "Abenteuer im Roten Meer" (Advetures in The Red Sea/Beneath The Read Sea in US). They were diving Dräger O2 rebreathers to 25 meters! That's a pO2 of 3.5 ata ... even if the rigs weren't flushed the pO2 would be dangerously high within a few minutes.
For those new to the subject, current pO2 limits are between 1.45 ata and 1.6 ata, or 4.5 msw to 6 msw.
caveseeker7
Contributor
But back to the question at hand:
Take a plastic bag, exhale and inhale into it, and you're rebreathing. To and from what in a rebreather would be the counterlung.
You can get about 4 breaths out of it before you run out of oxygen, air contains about 21% of that and you use up roughly 5% per inhalation. Most of that gets replaced with carbon-dioxide.
To get rid of the CO2 the exhaled gas goes through the scrubber, were the CO2 is chemically bound and thus removed from the gas.
O2 has to be added to sustain life. This can be done in a broad variety of ways.
Pure O2 is (added as) the only gas in the loop for shallow water applications.
O2 and another gas mix to dilute it used for depths were pure O2 is poisenous.
Once at a fixed depth with the proper gas composition, only O2 is added to replace metabolized O2.
O2 is added as part of a pre-mixed gas, either nitrox or trimix/heliox depending on depth. This is usually the case in semi-closed rebreathers.
Breathing bag, scrubber, O2 addition, a mouthpiece and some hoses to connect it all - and voila, you have a rebreather. Fairly simple, really, which is why they have been around for such a long time.
Kinda. Usually not air, but gas.EuphoriaII:Does it recirculate the same air or what? Just curious
Take a plastic bag, exhale and inhale into it, and you're rebreathing. To and from what in a rebreather would be the counterlung.
You can get about 4 breaths out of it before you run out of oxygen, air contains about 21% of that and you use up roughly 5% per inhalation. Most of that gets replaced with carbon-dioxide.
To get rid of the CO2 the exhaled gas goes through the scrubber, were the CO2 is chemically bound and thus removed from the gas.
O2 has to be added to sustain life. This can be done in a broad variety of ways.
Pure O2 is (added as) the only gas in the loop for shallow water applications.
O2 and another gas mix to dilute it used for depths were pure O2 is poisenous.
Once at a fixed depth with the proper gas composition, only O2 is added to replace metabolized O2.
O2 is added as part of a pre-mixed gas, either nitrox or trimix/heliox depending on depth. This is usually the case in semi-closed rebreathers.
Breathing bag, scrubber, O2 addition, a mouthpiece and some hoses to connect it all - and voila, you have a rebreather. Fairly simple, really, which is why they have been around for such a long time.
OP
EuphoriaII
Contributor
MoonWrasse:A little curiosity goes a long way
Wow, it sure does.
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