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All,
Is a trimix dive ever actually able to induce a useful oxygen window
during the course of a typical decompression schedule ?
I am talking here about the real oxygen window that operates between a
bubble / tissue or bubble / blood interface rather than the concentration
gradient it is often mistaken to be.
It seems that our practice of maintaining relatively high PPO2 during deco
would serve to keep the oxygen tissue tensions higher than that of any tissue
bound bubbles and the drop in venous PPO2 such a small percentage of the total
that there would be little or no opportunity to diffuse any O2 out of bubbles
in either environment during an ascent after the first gas switch.
For a blood bound bubble to experience an O2 window effect it must pass
from the arterial blood to the venous blood. How do they get on the
arterial side ?
What does breathing 100% O2 on the surface do to the odds of establishing
an O2 window ? What good does it do to replace inert bubble gasses with O2
if there is no mechanism to deflate them ?
It appears that the oxygen window is a relatively useless phenomenon to
the mix diver though it may be invoked to some extent by air divers who do not
switch gasses on ascent.
This assumes, of course, that there is such a thing as tissue bound
bubbles that are sufficiently isolated from the blood stream as to only off-
gas to the tissues.
Looking for other thoughts, ideas, and criticisms here !
Chuck Boone
--
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