Quote: (Originally Posted by Drmike)
Surely you would have the same difference between chest and back at any depth for the same amount of comfortable squeeze?
Put a piece of undergarment into a sealed container and pressurise it. Why would its COL value change? For it to change the material must be crushed. To do that a differential would have to exist the deeper you go. But in reality the diver controls the degree of inflation (differential) in his suit to what is comfortable at all depths. So I cant see how that can be. For the undergarment to crush more at depth the suit would need to crush more and so the diver would be in more pain...which he isnt...because he removes the differential (squeeze) by adding inflation gas.
I can see that it is different with a wetsuit where the air bubbles in the neoprene are crushed - but thats only beacuse the diver cant make up for that by adding more air into the neoprene air bubbles the way he can add air into a suit to get rid of the squeeze
....its a quiet night
Mike, I don't know and neither do you, and that is my point. You are just guessing...
Maybe a large portion of the small thinsulate fibers are welded shut during manufacturing and act as pressure containers. Regarding the pressure maybe I should have used the word compression as if you press it together. When the fibers are more compressed, which they are on some body parts compared to other, their thermal characteristics change because the fibers are closer to each other.
Also diving an Rebreather compared to OC would be different because you don't have the same cooling effect (increasing with increasing depth) from the breathing gas. That means you now loose a larger proportion of your heat from your body. And then at depth we also have the effects of increased CO2 production (gas density) and nitrogen narcosis that could change our bodies thermal response.
There are simply too many factors to draw the general conclusion that argon would not make a measurable difference to air in all diving scenarios. If we only look at the gases physical properties argon IS a better insulator than air.
Would love to continue this discussion but I got take off for 2 weeks of intense cave diving.
Regards,
Peter