<< Predictive Studies Programs

PREDICTIVE STUDIES IV (PS IV): Helium-Oxygen Compression. In-Water Work.
Major Category: Inert Gas Effects / Density / Hydrostatic Pressure / Narcosis (PS IV)
Subcategory: Predictive Studies IV (Expt. 12.50). Adaptation to neurological effects of high pressures of helium. Integrated physiologic studies in dry chamber. Practical work function in water.

Date: Summer, 1975

Expt. Title: Work Capability and Physiological Effects and Adaptations in Rapid Compressions to Pressure Equivalents of 400-800-1200-1600 Feet of Sea Water.

Description: 

A multidisciplinary, collaborative investigation involving exposure of 6 professional diver-Subjects, breathing helium with normoxic O2 in two separate exposure phases. The first phase involved compressions to pressure equivalents of 800 and 1200 feet of sea water. The second phase was to progressive increases of pressure equivalent to 400-800-1200-1600 feet of sea water. Rates of compression were selected to purposely induce physiological derangements associated with both initial exposure to compression and exposure to stable high pressure. Methods were devised to repetitively track mental, sensory, speech, neurophysiological, thermal, cardiovascular, and respiratory/pulmonary functions during excursions of 0 to 800, 800 to 1200, and 1200 to 1600 FSW. A pressure of 1200 FSW was reached in about half the time previously explored, and 1600 FSW was reached in about 27 hours on the second day, approximately 5 days sooner than in previous exposures. Practical work was performed underwater at pressures to 1610 FSW promptly following excursion from 1200 FSW. Decompression after 55 minute stay at 1600 FSW which followed 20-min 400-foot compression from 1200 FSW was accomplished in 1.5 hours. This investigation indicated the time course of onset and adaptation to effects of rapid compression and has shown the existence of a capacity for more efficient decompression in excursions during deep saturation than in shallow excursions from sea level. It demonstrated the ability of men to perform useful scientific, physical and technical work at the high pressures of deep undersea exposures.

Measurements:

Clinical Evaluations.
Symptoms and Overt Manifestations Induced by Rapid Compression.

Neurological, Neuromuscular and Performance Studies:

Electroencephalographic changes.
Visual evoked cortical responses (latency, amplitude, frequency analysis from EEG).
Tremor (intentional tremor, postural tremor).
Somatosensory evoked cortical responses.
Muscle strength (hand-grip muscle strength).
Muscular coordination (respiratory muscles, psychomotor functions, speech articulation, eye movement coordination, bicycle ergometry, underwater work).
Vestibular function and balance (electronystagmography, ocular fixation, pendulum tracking, posturography, electrical vestibular stimulation).
Auditory function (bone conduction auditory thresholds).
Visual function (central acuity, accommodation, color vision, perimetry).
Speech generation and distortion (operational speech, speech intelligibility tests).
Sleep electroencephalographic patterns.

Performance Studies

Memory and Cognitive (word-number, arithmetic, visual digit span tests).
Psychomotor (one-hand compensatory control, two-hand compensatory coordination, visual reaction time, wrench and cylinder tests).
Perceptual and Psychomotor (choice reaction time, number comparison, grip speed, card rotations tests).

Respiratory, Metabolic and Cardiac Studies:

Acute effects of hydrostatic pressure on pulmonary function (forced vital capacity, maximum voluntary ventilation, maximum expiratory flow rate, maximum expiratory and inspiratory pressures).
Cardiac Electrical and Mechanical Function.
Early morning, rest, exercise, response to postural change (electrocardiogram, heart rate, cardiac stroke volume, cardiac output).

Ventilatory & Metabolic Responses to Exercise during Rapid Compression to Extreme Pressures

(Ventilation, frequency of breathing, tidal volume; inspired, mean expired and end-tidal gas tensions; rate of O2 uptake, rate of CO2 elimination, esophageal pressure, diaphragmatic electromyogram),

Thermal and Metabolic Homeostasis

(rectal, skin and ambient temperature, ambient gas humidity and velocity, body weight, skinfold thickness, caloric intake, rate of O2 uptake, heart rate, cardiac output, ).

Ventilation at Rest During Compression, at Stable High Pressures, and Decompression.

        (ventilation, frequency, tidal volume, end-tidal CO2 and O2, rate of carbon dioxide elimination,

Biochemical, Endocrinological and Hematological Studies on Blood and Urine

    Blood:

(cortisol, aldosterone, angiotensin I, growth hormone, insulin, thyroxine (T₄), dopamine-B-hydroxylase (DBH), adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), serum glutamic oxalic transaminase (SGOT), calcium, magnesium, creatine phosphokinase (CPK), lactic acid dehydrogenase (total LDH), osmolality, sodium, potassium, chloride, creatinine and triglycerides).

(hemoglobin, hematocrit; counts of erythrocytes, reticulocytes, leucocytes and plate platelets; calculations of mean corpuscular volume, hemoglobin and hemoglobin content)

    Urine:

(Cortisol, aldosterone, antidiuretic hormone (ADH), epinephrine, norepinephrine, specific gravity, osmolality, sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, inorganic phosphate, uric acid and creatinine.

Practical Underwater Work Performance at High Pressures on Subsea Oil Wellhead Components

    (times required for: rigging, unfastening, disassembly, reassembly, completion)

Decompression Procedures and Therapy of Decompression Sickness.

Decompression from excursion exposures.
Decompression from saturation exposures
Ultrasonic detection of venous bubbles in decompression from deep excursion and saturation exposures
Therapy of decompression sickness

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J. Saturation-excursion diving. Physiological adaptation and practical underwater work in chamber "dives" to 1200 and 1600 feet. Faceplate, Summer: 12-13, 1976.

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J. Predictive Studies IV: Work capability and physiologic effects in He-O2 excursions to pressures to 400-800-1200-1600 FSW. In: Offshore Technology Conference. Proceedings 1976. V.III. Dallas: Offshore Technology Conference: 1161-1174, 1976.

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J. Predictive Studies IV. Physiological effects and work capability in manned He-O2 excursions staged to 400-800-1200 and 1600 FSW. In: The Working Diver-1976 Reigel, P., Ed. Washington, D.C.: Marine Technology Society: 156-173, 1976.

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J., R. Gelfand, and J.M. Clark, eds. Predictive Studies IV. Work capability and physiological effects in He-O2 excursions to pressures of 400-800-1200 and 1600 feet of sea water. Institute For Environmental Report 78-1, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1978.

REPORT: Kinney, J.A.S., R. Hammond, R. Gelfand and J. Clark. Visual; evoked cortical potentials in men during compression and saturation in He-O2 equivalent to 400-800-1200 and 1600 feet of sea water. Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol. 44:157-171, 1978.

REPORT: Greene, K. Therapy of decompression sickness occurring at great depths and the treatment of blow-up. Maximizing the usefulness of O2. In: The human factor in north sea operational diving. Lambertsen, C.J., S.R. O’Neill, and M.L. Long, eds. Allentown, PA: Air Products and Chemicals: 71-75, 1978.

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J. The relationship to offshore operations of scientific and technical advances from deep diving studies. In: The human factor in north sea operational diving. Lambertsen C.J., S.R. O’Neil, and M.L. Long, eds. Allentown, PA: Air Products and Chemicals: 17-30, 1978.

REPORT: Gelfand, R., C.J. Lambertsen, J.M. Clark, N. Egawa and C.D. Puglia. Ventilatory and cardiac adjustments during rapid compressions to pressure equivalents of 400-800-1200-1600 feet of sea water. Med. Aeronaut et Spatiale, Med., Subaquat. et Hyperbare. 17 (65): 114-116, 1978.

REPORT: Spencer, J., A. Findling, A.J. Bachrach, R. Gelfand, C.J. Lambertsen, and G. Karreman. Tremor and somatosensory studies during chamber He-O2compressions to 13.1, 25.2, 36.3, and 49.4 ATA. J. Appl. Physiol. 47: 804-812, 1979.

REPORT: Rothman, H.B., R. Gelfand, H. Hollien and C.J. Lambertsen. Speech intelligibility at high helium-O2 pressures. Undersea Biomed. Res. 7: 265-275, 1980.

REPORT: Greene, K.M. and C.J. Lambertsen. Nature and treatment of decompression sickness occurring after deep excursion dives. Undersea Biomed. Res. 7: 127-139, 1980.

REPORT: Gelfand, R., C.J. Lambertsen, and R.E. Peterson. Human respiratory control at high ambient pressures and inspired gas densities. J. Appl. Physiol. 48: 528-539, 1980.

REPORT: Lambertsen, C.J. Prediction of physiological limits to human undersea activity and extension of tolerance to high pressure. In: Environmental Physiology. Vol. 18 in Advances in Physiological Sciences. Proceedings of the 28th International Congress of Physiological Sciences, Budapest, 1980. Obal, F., and G. Benedek, Eds. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado:143-164, 1981.

REPORT: Naquet, R., and C.J. Lambertsen. Travail en hyperbare (work under hyperbaric conditions). In: Precis de physiologie du travail (ergonomie).: 327-340. Scherrer, J., Ed. Paris: Masson, 1982.

REPORT: Gelfand, R., C.J. Lambertsen, R. Strauss, J.M. Clark, and C.D. Puglia. Human respiration at rest in rapid compression and at high pressures and gas densities. J. Appl. Physiol. 54: 290-303, 1983.

REPORT: Bachrach, A.J., and M.M. Matzen, Eds. Concepts of ventilatory and respiratory gas homeostasis in simulated undersea exposure. In: Underwater Physiology VIII: 515-533. Bethesda: Undersea Medical Soc., 1984.

07 February 2000 10:13:07 AM