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  gleafe@ns*.ne* (Greg Leafe) wrote (Subject: pre dive nibbles):-

> some of the rebreather divers ... With the rather copious flatus production
> from certain cuisine (i.e. Mexican) with the production and expulsion of the
> gas production could this not raise havoc with maintaining neutral buoyancy?

Scatology apart, a heavy meal (even if eaten well before the dive) of food
which is as massively flatus-generating as seems to be described, would seem
to significantly upset calculations of the breathing gas maintenance system in
e.g. the hard suit called the Newtsuit where (from what I read) the oxygen is
fed in via an aqualung regulator whose `water' side is isolated as a small
chamber preset to 1 bar. Thus if he starts with 1 bar of air (.8 bar N2, .2
bar O2) in the suit, and as all CO2 generated disappears into the absorbent,
the effect is to maintain in the suit .8 bar ppN2 + .2 bar pp(O2 + flatus) but
not necessarily .2 bar ppO2. Even if the flatus stays inside the diver, it is
still inside the suit taking up space. Especially if the suit is a close fit
to the diver. Is there a doctor out there who can say what volume (i.e. litres
at 1 bar) of flatus can be generated in the human intestine in a day?

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