By Diana Stancy Correll
Jul 10, 2023
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Jul 10, 2023
A sailor with the Navy Experimental Diving Unit at Naval Support Activity Panama City, Fla., tests the capabilities of new diving gear, known as the Deep Sea Expeditionary with No Decompression Suit on Feb. 7–8. The concept aims to improve on the atmospheric diving suit by making it more flexible, lightweight and user-friendly.
(Ronnie Newsome/Navy)
The Navy is developing a new “Iron Man” diving suit that aims to enhance diver safety and allow them to work longer and in deeper waters.
The Deep Sea Expeditionary with No Decompression system, or DSEND as it is called, is a form-fitting atmospheric dive suit composed of rotating and flexible joints to provide divers with greater mobility while also keeping internal pressure steady.
“It is a hard suit that the diver crawls into,” Paul McMurtrie, Naval Sea Systems Command diving systems program manager and a retired Navy master diver, told Navy Times. “A good depiction would be an Iron Man suit for a diver underwater.”
Navy divers are tasked with deep ocean salvage of vessels and aircraft, underwater rescues, explosive ordnance disposal, ship hull maintenance and recovery of sunken equipment.
But one of the key challenges these divers face is dealing with water pressure in deep waters and decompression sickness, which happens when nitrogen doesn’t have enough time to clear from a diver’s blood due to a quick decrease in water pressure.
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To complete 20 to 25 minutes of work deep underwater, a typical work session, divers now must use a saturation system, or diving bell, pressurized with gas to match the outside water pressure. The deeper they descend, the greater the danger from increasing water pressure. They then gradually ascend — stopping at intervals — to prevent nitrogen from forming bubbles in their blood or tissue resulting in decompression sickness, known as “the bends,” and other complications like inner ear injuries due to undersea exposure.
After surfacing, divers then must spend another 90 minutes in a decompression chamber, McMurtrie said. Even following these protocols doesn’t eliminate the risk of decompression sickness entirely.
But the DSEND system aims to rectify these issues.
The suit, which has been in the works for more than five years, eliminates the need for a gradual ascent to the surface because it provides one consistent atmospheric pressure. This allows divers to spend greater time underwater, according to McMurtrie.
The Navy is developing a new “Iron Man” diving suit that aims to enhance diver safety and allow them to work longer and in deeper waters.
The Deep Sea Expeditionary with No Decompression system, or DSEND as it is called, is a form-fitting atmospheric dive suit composed of rotating and flexible joints to provide divers with greater mobility while also keeping internal pressure steady.
“It is a hard suit that the diver crawls into,” Paul McMurtrie, Naval Sea Systems Command diving systems program manager and a retired Navy master diver, told Navy Times. “A good depiction would be an Iron Man suit for a diver underwater.”
Navy divers are tasked with deep ocean salvage of vessels and aircraft, underwater rescues, explosive ordnance disposal, ship hull maintenance and recovery of sunken equipment.
But one of the key challenges these divers face is dealing with water pressure in deep waters and decompression sickness, which happens when nitrogen doesn’t have enough time to clear from a diver’s blood due to a quick decrease in water pressure.
RELATED
How Navy divers are preparing for the Arctic battlefront
Diving beneath 18 inches of ice presents its own hazards and challenges.
By Geoff Ziezulewicz
To complete 20 to 25 minutes of work deep underwater, a typical work session, divers now must use a saturation system, or diving bell, pressurized with gas to match the outside water pressure. The deeper they descend, the greater the danger from increasing water pressure. They then gradually ascend — stopping at intervals — to prevent nitrogen from forming bubbles in their blood or tissue resulting in decompression sickness, known as “the bends,” and other complications like inner ear injuries due to undersea exposure.
After surfacing, divers then must spend another 90 minutes in a decompression chamber, McMurtrie said. Even following these protocols doesn’t eliminate the risk of decompression sickness entirely.
But the DSEND system aims to rectify these issues.
The suit, which has been in the works for more than five years, eliminates the need for a gradual ascent to the surface because it provides one consistent atmospheric pressure. This allows divers to spend greater time underwater, according to McMurtrie.
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