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ABSTRACT Atmospheric diving suits are articulated, anthropomorphic pressure vessels which permit support of offshore operations to 610 meters (2,000 ft) while retaining the operator at a one atmosphere pressure level. By the summer of 1978 fourteen suits were at work for the offshore industry in applications including exploratory drilling support, platform and pipeline inspection. Preliminary work has also been completed to interface these suits with equipment for maintenance of wet trees and manifolds. Locations include Arctic, Alaskan, Australian, Brazilian, North Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean waters. Both walking and thruster powered suits are covered.
An outline history of development of such equipment is described indicating the design concepts and resulting capabilities of such systems and suggesting the areas where usage has been most effective and economic. Data includes dive and task summaries, dive profiles, and unexpected capabilities and problems. Cost savings from operations are summarized. Also covered is a summary of tasks related to particular applications and the pre-planning and interface-design concepts required to assure mission success.
HISTORY The earliest recorded rigid suit diving dress dates back to 1715 when John Lethbridge, an English barrel maker, made an airtight cask from which his arms protruded. The archives tell us that dives of 30 minutes duration to depths of 18 meters (60 ft) were made in this device. In the late 1800's and early 1900's the development of atmospheric "armoured" suits produced many novel but mostly impractical designs. These devices failed usually for one of two reasons; either the articulated joints became immobile with increasing water pressure, or the failure of an external joint seal would lead to flooding of the suit.
In 1921 Joseph Peress developed a fluid supported joint the principle of which was based on a spherical piston and cylinder with the fluid contained by a rolling fabric diaphragm. Despite some early encouragement in development of these joints during the early 1930's, which resulted in several successful dives below 150 meters (490 ft), and one notable dive to locate the wreck of the Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland, the interest in atmospheric diving suits generally waned as the physiology of ambient pressure diving became better understood.
Virtually no further progress was made in atmospheric diving suits during the period 1937 to 1967 due mainly to the development of sophisticated underwater breathing apparatus and relatively reliable decompression tables. The need created by the Oil Industry to progress into deeper and more hostile water re-activated interest in atmospheric diving, and in 1969 DHB Construction Ltd of England began further development of the Peress joint. This led to subsequent patents being taken out and the successful production of the "JIM" atmospheric diving suit.
In 1973 Oceaneering International Inc., committed to a programme of investigating safe and more cost effective alternatives to deep ambient diving and a year later the JIM went on its first offshore oilfield job. In 1975 the JIM was put into production by Underwater Marine Equipment Ltd of England and fourteen suits, some of advanced design, were at work by late 1978.
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