Diving apparatus

April 15, 1941.

I. h. vestrem 2,238,759

DIVING APPARATUS

Filed July 21, 1939 3 Sheets-Sheet 1

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Cl-UxX/

April 15, 1941.

I. H. VESTREM

DIVING APPARATUS

Filed July 21, 1939

2,238,759

Sheets-Sheet 2

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<img file="US2238759A_D0003.tif" />

IvanH.VEstrEm

April 15, 1941.

I. H. VESTREM

DIVING APPARATUS

Filed July 21, 1939

2,238,759

Sheets-Sheet 3

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Patented Apr. 15,1941 _?’ί^’⁷⁵⁹

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE

2,238,759

DIVING APPARATUS

Ivan Hans Vestrem, Cedar Keys, Fla., assignor of one-sixth to Manuel Kepote, Cedar Keys, Fla. one-sixth to Gus Cocorls, ®^ne;^s₁ⁱ^^bMavros, one-sixth to James Alafantis, a Tarpon Springs, Fla., and one-sixth to Jack I. Bolton, Milwaukee, Wis.

Application July 21,1939, Serial No. 285,693 (Cl. 61—70) nressure and the divers may also take advantage of increased oxygen percentages of over one hundred feet are desirable or neces sary. If it becomes necessary to decompress from deep dives, there is available a supply of pure oxygen to help the blood stream throw off the helium and carbon dioxide through the lungs.

The elimination of the air hose not only the diver of the labor of dragging the extra weight around, but removes a source of danger. Accidents to the air hose have often been fatal ^Iirtoe drawings illustrating a preferred embodiment of the invention, Figure 1 is a side^elevation of the upper part of a diving sint showing the helmet and tanks in position; Fig. 2 is a front view of the helmet with a portion broken away to show the face mask or respirator and its attachment to the helmet; Fig. 3 is aJight side elevation of the helmet; Fig. 4 is a bottom view of Fig. 3' Fig. 5 is a rear elevation of the respirator^- Fig. 6 is a vertical section through the nose piece of the respirator; Fig. 7 is an elevation, as seen from the side which is normally next tothe - body of the oxygen tanks; and Fig. 8 is a front elevation of the tanks that hold the mixture of helium and oxygen. nr

The diving suit I may be of any ^ordmarysuitable construction and it has securedthereto by a water-and-gas-tight connection, a breast plate 2 which is provided at front and rear wit rings or loops 3 and 4 for the suspension ofttie gas tanks. At the top, the breastplate has a circular flange 5 to receive the bottoin flange 6 of a helmet 1, which will usually be ^made °* per for use in sea water. The flanges 5 and are secured together in a well-known “«ine^ ^byinterfitting lugs such as are shownl at iI in Fig. 4.

In the top of the helmet, above the leftade oi the diver’s head, , is a screw-threaded «*ket ’ to receive a threaded valve casing 10 to winch is attached a corrugated or ^beUows-hke rubber tube If having at its lower end a fitting 2 secured in the side of a rubber , which has an inspiratory valve at 14. The d carefully adjusts this respirator mask to> his face and secures it in place by a strap 15 ^chpasses back of the head. This is done as the hehnet is held over the head by the diver’s tender and when the mask is fitted, the helmet is set ^uP«n the flange of the breast plate and secured thereto. Smed upon or attached to the rear of the helmet is a container 16, which, m use, is filled with absorbent .soda lime, a caustic soda mixture with quicklime, which readily takes up moisture and carbon dioxide. A filler cap Π P^rovld®| ^aCGes® . to the container opposite a partition 18 which ... extends longitudinally of the container for twothirds or more of its length. A tube 19 expends 50 from the socket 9 to the lower portion of the left

Claims. '

This invention relates to helmets for diving in deep water and has for its primary object the provision of means for supplying to' the heta a factitious atmosphere which will not readily,be absorbed by the blood or tissues when theOliver . is working under high pressures. A further ob iect is the provision of means for removing the exhaled carbon dioxide without contamination of the atmosphere and for supplying. ^add^^on^ oxygen to replace that consumed by the diver in toe process of respiration. A still further object is the provision of these and other advantages m a self-contained device which will not require the use of an air hose leading from the surface of the water to the helmet.

For many years, divers in the sponge indust y in Florida have been using the conventional diving apparatus which comprises a canvas-rubber suit, a copper helmet, and an air hose air compressed by a pump upon the deck of the boat from which the diver operates. Divers must walk miles on the bottoms searching for sponges to detach them and send them up to the surface. Their work sends them down as deep as sixty to eighty feet. At the pressure required to ^furnjsn a continuous supply of .aid to divers at such depths nitrogen is absorbed by the blood and thus carried to other body tissues. Hard work under such pressure produces a condition which increases in danger with the length of time so spent. .

When a diver comes out of this region of hig compression, the absorbed, dissolved, or occluded nitrogen tends to escape, and if this action is allowed to take place too rapidly after too long a period of submersion at the high pressure resui to a large absorption of gas, the consequences maybe very serious. The “bends,” as the various symptoms are called, range from a slight ^ltcbing sensation to blocking of nerve centers, paralysis, heart trouble and sometimes death or permanent Kry Ith; not practicable to use decompression Xaratus with the loss of time that results so the divers set certain limits on the time that they will stay below and they avoid the greater depths Fn which are to be found many of the finest ^SPThe^eSdevice of the . present invention provides means by which a mixture of may be used in place of air, the mixture being breathed over and over again, oxygen being added at about the same rate that it is consumed fn toeprocess of respiration, wtale the carbon dioxide from the lungs is removed ^by nassine the exhaled breath through a chamber containing an absorbent dioxide will combine. Divers can thus worK long 2r and harder while breathing this mixture of £ nxvgen because the solubility of helium tathe blood and its occlusion by the tissues is KmS'than that of nitrogen at the same

2,238,759 wall of the container and a tube 20 connects the upper portion of the left wall with an inlet 21 in the helmet. Exhaled air containing carbon dioxide will thus pass through tube 11 to and through the expiratory valve 22 in the Casing 10, thence through the tube 19 into the lower portion of the container i 6 where it must travel through the soda lime, both below the partition and above the partition before it is returned into the helmet at the inlet 2i. The carbon dioxide 10 and moisture from the breath will unite with the caustic soda and lime, but the chemically inert helium and uncombined oxygen will pass through unchanged.

f.^ronfc tanks 23 are held together by a clamp 15 having a snap fastener 25 which engages within the ring or loop 3 and the rear tanks 26 are held together by a clamp 27 which has a snap fastener 28 engaging the rear ring or loop 4 on the breast plate.

A belt 29 around the body of the diver holds the lower ends of the tanks in place and a strap 30 passed between the legs of the diver holds the breast plate and helmet from lifting too high when the suit is inflated and beneath the water

Each of the tanks 23 has a valve 3 ί connected to a manifold 32 which is connected by a tube 33 with a fitting 34 forming an inlet into the breast Plate 2. The gas mixture of helium and oxygen can be admitted at will when needed, to the desired degree of pressure to keep the suit inflated by opening either valve 3!, as necessitated by the pressure at the depth at which the diver is working. The rear tanks 26 have valves 35 connected to a regulator or reducing valve 36 to i > lower the high gas pressure of the tanks to a working pressure. A rubber hose 37 connects this regulator with a snap-on fitting 38 on the right ®^ld? ^{of helmefc}- and a pipe 39 leads from the fitting 38 to an elbow 40 on the helmet connected 40 on the inside of the helmet with a pressure gage 41 and an orifice 42 for the admission of a small quantity of oxygen continuously into the helmet to agree with the rate at which oxygen is used up in respiration. A valve 43 controls this inlet. A larger valve 44 allows pure oxygen to be admitted rapidly into the helmet through an elbow 45 whenever the suit is to be inflated, in an emergency, or during decompression.

An exhaust valve 46 operated by a head piece 47 can be opened by sidewise pressure of the diver’s head if desired. The pressure inside the suit is normally kept greater than the pressure outside to keep the weight of the helmet and tanks off the diver’s shoulders. The buoyancy of the inflated suit requires the diver to wear ^5tweighted shoes to hold his feet down and lead weights 48 and 49 are attached to the tank assemblies in front and rear as additional ballast to keep the diver down and in balance.

A small tank for holding compressed air or any other compressed gas such as carbon dioxide may be attached as at 50 to the rear tank assembly, as a means for supplying a continuous flow of gas to give a signal upon the surface of the water to indicate to those on the boat where the diver is located on the bottom.

Enough gas can be carried in the tanks for the full period a diver should remain' below at one stretch; By careful use, very little helium needs to be lost, and the oxygen tanks at high pressure ‘⁰will conta-in a sufficient supply to compensate for that used in respiration for a long while.

The gas mixture for diving to one hundred feet should be about 37.5% helium to 62.5% oxygen, the gases being preferably carefully mixed well in advance of their use in a storage tank before being compressed into the small tanks 23.’ Helium seems to mix relatively slowly with oxygen and this procedure allows time for thorough uniformity of admixture.

The ability to supply additional oxygen at will and rapidly, and the relatively small waste of helium are features of considerable advantage. Because of the much slower rate of absorption of helium by the blood, divers can work safely at greater depths and for much longer periods of time without danger of the “bends.” It will also be evident that the diver has much greater free^d°^{m movemer,}t with the present device than when he is forced to drag around a heavy air nose, and the flexible respirator tube permits free movement of the diver’s head and absence of strain as compared with those devices in which he diver is compelled to hold a mouthpiece mounted rigidly on the helmet, in his teeth or with hts lips and thus to turn the whole body in order to turn the head.

The amiual cost of air hose is a very considerable part of the cost of operation, and this device saves all that expense besides the cost of running the pump.

!t will be evident that many changes in details of construction and in the proportions and manner of arrangement of parts may be made without departure from the invention as claimed