Warming up to Argon

[CotoChris]

This morning had my first dive of the year and felt great, was 1ºc air temp and water at 10ºc making it seem warm! Anyway my buddy was using argon gas for her drysuit to help her stay warm, still it didn't seem to work too well as she canned the dive after 35min from the cold.
I havn't heard much on YD on people using Argon, is it because it is not often used or more for the tech divers for decompression?
I rarely do decompresion diving and reckon it's better to have a good undersuit than investing with an extra gas & cylinder.
I'm curious to hear on others experience with Argon.

[Woz]

Wate of time. There was a bloke at the BSAC DOC who did some proper scientific tests on it and the difference between it and air is negligible.

[CotoChris]

Originally Posted by Woz

Wate of time. There was a bloke at the BSAC DOC who did some proper scientific tests on it and the difference between it and air is negligible.

On the boat I tried it, didn't notice a thing. The only warmth came from my fart

[essexbloke]

Their was a thread a few mouth back about this nigal h came up with some good stats in favor for argon it is minimal but i do use it my self the trick is too really flush the suit with argon before the dive ie fill the suit then let the air out again do this 2 /3times to get best results ,but if you really feel the cold then buy yourself a icebreaker vest.

[Martin Burnard]

The main difference is due to the cooling effect as the gas expands on entering the drysuit when its presure decreases (Does that make sense?).

Now an extreme example is liquid nitrogen, put that in your drysuit and you will be errr rather chilly (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!).

Put helium in your drysuit and you will be very cold.

Air will be so so

Argon well maybe a snidge better, but who notices?

There easy really. (but I could be talking bollocks as this is the internet!)

[nigelH]

I just filled the suit bottle with Argon for a dive tomorrow. It offers 60% more insulation but that's actually not going to make much difference. I've seen lots of studies on core temperature and you get no change but your core temperature stays up because your body invests energy in keeping it up. It's old men like me that need all the help we can get that benefit from Argon to delay the point where we lose control of temperature and start to get cold. Admittedly going up a step on your undersuit is probably just as good but I have the suit inflate separate to provide redundancy on buoyancy so why not switch from Air too Argon if it's cold?

[Martin Burnard]

I assume that brings us onto having to flush all the air out of the drysuit, so as to have pure argon as an insulator.

Is argon expensive? I have not a clue!

And would I be right in assuming that is 60% better than "not very good"?

The concept of less energy use inorder to maintain core temperature appears to make sense.

Next question is argon more effective in a lofting undersuit (eg weezle), than it would be in a thinsulate undersuit which doesn't rely on lofting for warmth?

Which then begs the question, If you use a lofting undersuit, then the volume that needs to be warmed is greater, so is this more difficult to warm?

Which then brings us onto the more volume, the more surface area which will radiate heat, thus making maintaining the warmth more difficult. How relevant is that?

If using a lofting undersuit only your back is lofted, hence insulated, as air will rise. Does this mean that the compressed material on your chest (which ideally would be lofted), is failing to operate efficiently and thus loosing heat rapidly?

Just a few questions over which I ponder.

I guess nobody is going to spend the money to address all these variables.

So we are left to guess!

Have a good dive tomorrow NigelH. If you find yourself thinking about this thread... you need help!

All the best

Martin

[ccr_ada]

When in malta in November doing a week of 3h/4h+ dives i used tixylix to stay cool in my dry suit

The tixylix{16/40} was free from the group the week before us
A nice 8ltr suit inflate bottle and used for bailout it lasted the week
{so thanks!!!!}

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Martin Burnard

I guess nobody is going to spend the money to address all these variables.

The guy was from Qinetic - they probably spent money finding out which says of the year argon works best on

[Gary K]

Originally Posted by Adrian Kelland

The guy was from Qinetic - they probably spent money finding out which says of the year argon works best on

or even QinetiQ