Schedules in the Integrated Air Decompression Table of U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Revision 6: Computation and Estimated Risks of Decompression Sickness

Abstract

Revision 6 of the U.S. Navy Diving Manual contains a collection of integrated Air Decompression Tables for air diving with schedules for decompression on air, air and in-water O2 (Air/O2), and air with surface decompression using oxygen (Air SurDO2). These tables were computed with an enhanced version of the Thalmann exponential-linear decompression model (EL-DCM) parameterized with VVal-18M, a modified version of the VVal-18 maximum permissible tissue tension table, and associated global parameters. Most of the algorithmic enhancements, along with the modifications made to VVal-18 to produce VVal-18M, were described in an earlier reports (NEDU TR 07-09) with presentation and analysis of an initial version of the tables. However, additional changes to the algorithm and parameters were made and selected computed schedules were edited manually to produce the final integrated Air Decompression Tables that appear in the U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Revision 6. This report describes the algorithmic provisions that were adopted to compute the final tables, documents the manual edits to the computed tables that were made to produce the tables as they finally appeared, and provides estimated risks of decompression sickness (DCS) for each of the tabulated schedules.