Air Consumption Calculation

Air Consumption Calculation
Written by Gary Townsend Thursday, 01 May 2008 09:41 - Last Updated Thursday, 12 November 2009 13:07
By Gary Townsend
How long can you stay down on a tank of air? This is the universal question asked of all divers. A more important question for the serious diver would be Will my tank last for the dive I am planning to make? The operative word here is planning because without a dive plan the safety of a dive becomes a crapshoot.
As we know, the answer to these questions depends on three factors, divers breathing rate, size of tank and depth of dive .
Divers Breathing Rate
Breathing Rate, expressed as the quantity of air used per minute. Sounds simple doesnt it. It is, however several factors need to be considered when coming up with just what your breathing rate is for a particular dive.
One of the most important considerations is what your workload is going to be. Are you making a simple no stress casual swim on a tropical reef or is this going to be a deep dive on a shipwreck in the Great Lakes? Are you making a drift dive on the reefs of Cozumel or a wreck in the St. Clare River in Port Huron?
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Well you get the picture.
There are some general rules that can be used to add a work modifier when calculating these variables. Using an at rest work modifier as a baseline these multipliers can be used to help modify varying dive situations.
At rest 1.0
Mild work load multiply by 1.5
Moderate work multiply by 2.0
Heavy work multiply by 3.0 to 5.0 minimum (may go as high as 10X higher!)
However if you are like most serious divers, you have been keeping a dive log and there in is all of the information needed to calculate your own personal breathing rate. With this information, depending on how many dives and different type of diving conditions you have logged, you can compute your breathing rate for several different conditions and workloads.
For purposes of this discussion, we will look at two types of diver breathing rates. Breathing rate at depth called Under Water Air Consumption (UWAC) rate and Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate.
There are two methods to compute breathing rate, psi per minute (psi/M) or cubic feet per minute (CF/M). When breath from your tank, the air you
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consumed is registered on your SPG as psi consumed, but when you take a breath you breathe in a volume of air in cubic feet.
The obvious solution would be to calculate all of your air consumption in psi. Unfortunately the problem is that 100psi from an aluminum 80 is 2.67 CF (cubic feet) of air while a steel 80 it is only 2.29 CF. This is due to the fact that the aluminum 80 has a rated working pressure of 3000psi where the steel 80s is 3500psi.
If you always dive with the same size tank then it would make sense to use the psi /M method. However if you use several different size tanks or do a lot of travel diving you may find it more convenient to use the CF/M method. Either method will work and are valid; it remains a personal choice as to which method you use.
If you chose to use the CF/M, you will need to be able to calculate the volume of air in any tank at any given pressure. By dividing any tanks rated cubic footage by the rated working pressure you derive the volume, in cubic feet, contained in the tank at 1psi. Once you have the volume at 1psi you need only multiply, it times the pressure on your gauge to tell you the current volume.
Example:
We know that an 80 cubic foot aluminum tank has 80 cubic feet of air when filled to 3000psi.
80/3000 = .0267
For this example, you have 2500psi in your 80CF tank.
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2500 x .0267 = 66.67 CF
Note: Many of the older steel tanks had a + after the first hydrostatic test date, this means that it only has its rated CF when filled to 10% over the stamped pressure. This will mean that when using the formula to calculate the CF at 1psi you must use the rated psi+10%
Example:
71.2 CF steel tank with 2250psi working pressure and + symbol after the first hydrostatic test date, so you must add 225psi to the working pressure and then divide 71.2 by 2475.
71.2/2475 = .0288
Now that you know how much air you have available for a dive you will need to know what your breathing rate is. Breathing rate is the amount of air you consume per minute, and is expressed as Under Water Air Consumption (UWAC) rate or Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate.
UWAC rate is the rate at which you consume air at a specific depth and is used to calculate how long a tank will last.
If the dive was to 33 feet and took 68 minutes to complete, you can calculate how much air you consumed per minute during this dive by dividing the CF of air used by the time of the dive.
Example:66.67/68 = .98 CF/min.
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If you are using the PSI method, you will have to divide the psi used, 2,500 psi, by the number of minutes underwater, 68 minutes.
Example: 2500/68 = 36.76 PSI/min.
These are UWAC rates, but unless you make all of your dives to 33 feet it will do you little good, you must convert UWAC rate to a SAC rate. You do this by dividing your UWAC rate .98 CF/min. or 36.76 PSI/min. by the depth of the dive in Atmospheres Absolute (ATA). 33 is 1 Atmosphere but you must always take into account that there is 1 Atmosphere of pressure at the surface so in fact you are at 2ATA at 33.
Examples:.98/2 = .49 CF/min SAC rate
36.67/2 = 18.34 PSI/min SAC rate
One thing that will make these calculations more accurate is if your computer gives your average depth of your dives. If you have this option then by using this average depth in your calculations your SAC rate will be that much more accurate.
Another thing that you can do to get, as accurate SAC rate is to make several test dives. These are dives to a specific depth, maintain that depth for 10 minutes then record your PSI consumed and calculate your SAC rate based on this information. You can do this for several dives under varying conditions, depth, water temperature, type of equipment used, etc. This can give you a better idea of what your true SAC rate is.
Now let us put this all together to set up a formula so that we can calculate our SAC rate over several dives to find out what our average SAC rate is.
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The three things that you need to calculate SAC rate are Depth, Bottom Time and Quantity of air consumed.
Formula:CF/([D/33] + 1) BT = SAC rate
= Depth of Dive D
= Bottom Time BT
or PSI= Cubic Feet or PSI of air used CF
If you make a dive to 33 feet for 68 minutes and use 67 cubic feet of air you would use this formula to calculate your SAC rate for this dive.
D =33 ftBT = 68 min. CF = 67 cu ft
67/( [33/33] + 1) 68 =
67/([1 + 1] 68) =
Atmosphere absolute = (33/33) + 1 = 2 ATA
67/(2 x 68) =
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Time factor = 2 ATA x 68 min = 136
67/136 = .49 CF SCR
Calculating a Dive
There are two ways to plan a dive:
1)Decide on the dive profile, time and depth, then calculate how much air you will need to make it;
Formula: BR x BT(D + 33)/33 = CF
= .49 CF = 50 min.D = 120 ft. BR BT
x 50 (120 + 33)/33= .49
. x 50 x 4.64 = 113.6 CF2) 49
Decide on the depth and tank size, then calculate how long that air will last you.
Formula: CF/(D + 33)/33 x BR = BT
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= .49 CF CF = 80 CF = 70 Ft. BR D
80/(70 + 33)/33 x .49 = BT
80/1.53 = 52.29 min
Because most of the time we are limited with our choice of tank sizes we will use this second method of planning our dives, but the option is there for either using multiple tanks or stationing additional tanks at your staged safety stops.
no means am I saying that for every dive, you need to do air By calculations, but before your more technical dives, it would be prudent to do the calculations. Not only is it important to plan how deep, where and how long your going to dive but you must know if you have sufficient air to dive your plan.
[1] Air consumption calculations can, not only, be important but it can be fun to work these calculations and see how your SAC rate will change with different conditions. Part of the fun of the planning your air consumption for the dive is checking to see how close your actual air usage came to your calculations.
doing these air consumption calculations, I have one that I have developed using Windows Office Excel 2003 contact me for a copy.
[1] There are several computer programs available that will assist you in
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