Why do you get dry suit squeeze and not wet suit squeeze?

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Why do you get dry suit squeeze and not wet suit squeeze? In both suits you have water pressure against you, so why do dry suit people get the squeezed, can't breathe feeeling?

Is that just so that they will have to suffer something to have the comfort of diving warm and dry??? LOL

Seriosly, what is going on that makes this happen?

 

[mikerault]

You have water on both sides of the wetsuit while you have air, a compressible medium, on one side of the drysuit.

Mike

 

[Sharky1948]

Poke a hole in your drysuit and the squeeze will go away!

 

[D_B]

a wet suit leaks water inside, then the water pressure inside equals the pressure on the outside .. in a dry suit, if you do not manually compensate for the increase pressure outside by adding air inside, you get "squeezed"
Hmmm, I wonder if you had a really, really good semi dry wetsuit, dived down quickly, could you get a squeeze for a short time till it equalizes?

If you want to feel dry suit squeeze, just put on a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves and stick your hand in a sink full of water, you can feel the water squeezing your hand = drysuit squeeze
... now push your hand deeper untill the water goes over the top of the glove and fills it up ... = Wetsuit, no more squeeze

 

[H2Andy]

yeah... basically water is a non-compressible fluid, and there is water between you and the wetsuit. thus, the water pressure outside the suit will not be able to compress the water against your skin, and you won't feel anything

wheras air is a compressible fluid, and the water pressure will squeeze it and you'll feel the squeeze

 

[1_T_Submariner]

Yup pressure equalizes on both sides of the wet suit.

 

[ReefHound]

These explanations make no sense to me. Air is compressible but it will only compress to the same psi as the water. Law of equilibrium. What does it matter if you have 50psi water or 50psi air adjacent to your skin?

 

[FoSheZZie23]

If you notice as you go deeper (when the squeeze happens in a dry suit) your wetsuit will actually compress. It is most obious in your gloves, so technically your wetsuit does "squeeze" it just squeezes itself since there is a layer of water inbetween it and your body. ;-)

 

[Prostar]

It is the cells of the wetsuit that compress. Each cell has air in it. So, in a sense, the wetsuit does compress.

 

[D_B]

These explanations make no sense to me. Air is compressible but it will only compress to the same psi as the water. Law of equilibrium. What does it matter if you have 50psi water or 50psi air adjacent to your skin?

It doesant matter, the differece is that with air, you have to add it to your suit to make up for the decreased volume of the air as it's compressed, the pressure inside is the same as outside, air or water.