| Title | US Navy Looks to "Artificial Blubber" to Protect Divers | |
| Date | Thursday September 06 2018, @11:41PM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the krypton-ite dept. | ||
Whales, seals, and other marine mammals seem to do alright in the chill waters of the arctic seas, so the US Navy is developing a type of "artificial blubber" to allow divers to work in freezing conditions for hours on end. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the collaboration between MIT and George Mason University uses an off-the-shelf wetsuit permeated with inert gases to triple a diver's resistance against the threat of hypothermia.
[...] The modification involves replacing the air trapped in the neoprene foam that provides heat insulation with heavy, inert gases, such as xenon and krypton, which make the neoprene act like fat-concentrating blubber. This is done by putting an ordinary neoprene suit into a bespoke pressure tank the size of a beer keg and pumping in the inert gases. After several hours, the gas permeates the suit, forcing the air out.
According to ONR, this makes the suit effective at 10° (50° C)[sic see note] for hours instead of minutes. The treatment isn't permanent as the gases leak out over 20 hours, but the team points out that this is much longer than the time divers spend in the water.
Why not recruit divers with more blubber?
[Note: This conversion error appeared in the original story; it should have read: 10°C (50° F). Story updated 20180907_011649 UTC --martyb]
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printed from SoylentNews, US Navy Looks to "Artificial Blubber" to Protect Divers on 2024-04-27 09:56:10