Welcome to ScubaBoard, an online scuba diving forum community where you can join over 205,000 divers from around the world discussing all things related to Scuba Diving. To gain full access to ScubaBoard (and make this large box go away) you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:
Participate in over 500 dive topic forums and browse from over 5,500,000 posts.
Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
Post your own photos or view from well over 100,000 user submitted images.
Gain access to our free classifieds marketplace to buy, sell and trade gear, travel and services.
Use the calendar to organize your events and enroll in other members' events.
All this and much more is available to you absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact the ScubaBoard Support Team.
I've posted a similar question elsewhere, but I figured I'd try somewhere else as well.
I understand that the pressure underwater at great depths would cause arteries to burts, sinuses to rupture, and lungs to collapse and therefore disabling a diver to continue down (might be hard to swim with and aneurism and collapsed lungs) but if hypothetically all other systems remained functional, how deep would one have to go before the pressure was great enough to crush the skull?
There is absolutely no practical application to the answer of this question, I'm just looking to compare some numbers.
I've posted a similar question elsewhere, but I figured I'd try somewhere else as well.
I understand that the pressure underwater at great depths would cause arteries to burts, sinuses to rupture, and lungs to collapse and therefore disabling a diver to continue down (might be hard to swim with and aneurism and collapsed lungs) but if hypothetically all other systems remained functional, how deep would one have to go before the pressure was great enough to crush the skull?
There is absolutely no practical application to the answer of this question, I'm just looking to compare some numbers.
I am no physicist but I was under the impression that since the body is largely incompressible that the effect of pressure would only affect the air spaces, and as long as your breathing gas was at ambient pressure then that wouldn't be a problem either. After all fish can be found at great depths and they don't have crushed skulls.
(Of course if we are talking of depths of thousands of metres then the main problem would be that there is no suitable breathing gas that would allow a human to survive...unless you were talking about the effects of pressure on a dead body?)
The concept of "crush depth" has more of a foundation in differential pressure than absolute pressure - like the differnce in pressure between the surroundings and the internals of an object - whether a skull or a submarine. As someone pointed out in the other thread, with the human body being mostly water, and water being a pretty fair representation of a Newtonian fluid, probably very, very, deep - and we may never know. A submarine at one atmosphere absolute pressure inside experiences increasing differential pressure as it descends - difference between outside absolute pressure and inside absolute pressure.
It wonl't happen, unless you can create a delta in presure between the sides of the skull. That wonl't happen unless you take the head off someone and seal up all the holes.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Just Curious
