Submarines are fairly cool bits of equipment. They’ll provide researchers an unequalled view of the ocean ground, assist get hold of lacking wrecks beneath the waves and may even ferry in regards to the wealthy and well-known, with combined outcomes. Whereas all that may be very cool, there’s one draw back to using in a deep sea submarine: you would possibly find yourself sounding fairly foolish.
When a submarine dives under the floor, it’s a totally sealed system, with the crew taking down the whole lot they’ll want on their journey to the ocean ground. This contains important provides, snacks, any gear they need and even the air they’ll must breathe.
Relating to taking sufficient air for a visit, crews flip to compressed gasses that may be piped into their cabin as required. Often, a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen is ok because it replicates the form of air we breathe on the floor. While you go deeper, nonetheless, that’s not as secure to make use of.
As an alternative, on for much longer and deeper journeys to the ocean ground, subs are loaded up with a fuel referred to as heliox, which is a mix of helium and oxygen. This combination is used on saturation diving missions, the place crews sink to the ocean ground in specifically designed subs for as much as 28 days at a time.
Throughout these journeys, they dwell and work contained in the craft and likewise exit the vessel to hold out work on issues like oil rigs and underwater cables. When spending so lengthy beneath the waves, the heliox fuel offers crews of deep sea submarines a greater blood oxygen saturation and means they will stay secure underneath the water, defined wonderful Instagrammer Geo Rutherford in a latest put up.
Right this moment, the helium/oxygen mix is utilized by anybody diving to 190 toes or larger, and its benefits makes deep-sea diving a lot safer. In addition to these fairly vital benefits, heliox does convey with it a moderately amusing aspect impact: it makes you sound a bit like a chipmunk.
As a result of helium is a much less dense fuel that oxygen, it permits your vocal cords to vibrate way more shortly if you communicate, explains the Franklin Institute. As your vocal chords are vibrating faster, the pitch of your voice rises to comical ranges, which means that everybody on a deep-sea dive comes again to the sub sounding like a cartoon character, as you possibly can see within the video above.
The combo of helium and oxygen has been utilized by divers on deep-sea tasks for years, defined the US Naval Undersea Museum in a latest weblog put up. It was developed within the Thirties for the only goal of serving to scuba divers head deeper into the oceans, as the location explains:
In Could 1939, submarine USS Squalus (SS 192) sank in 243 toes of water. The salvage operation offered the primary actual check of NEDU’s helium-oxygen respiratory combination. After divers skilled disorienting nitrogen narcosis whereas respiratory air, they had been switched to helium. Respiration helium eradicated the consequences of nitrogen narcosis and allowed the divers to work longer and extra effectively.
These early assessments of heliox did reveal one other amusing problem of utilizing the fuel. In addition to giving the divers a humorous voice, the helium within the combine additionally made them extra buoyant within the water, which needed to be compensated for within the combine’s make-up and, in some cases, with further weights for divers.
