An atmospheric diving suit is a small one-person articulated submersible of
anthropomorphic form which resembles a suit of armour, with elaborate pressure
joints to allow articulation while maintaining an internal pressure of one
atmosphere. The ADS can be used for very deep dives of up to 2,300 feet for many
hours, and eliminates the majority of physiological dangers associated with
deep diving; the occupant need not decompress, there is no need for special
gas mixtures, and there is no danger of decompression sickness or nitrogen
narcosis. Divers do not even need to be skilled swimmers.
Atmospheric diving suits in current use include the Newtsuit and the WASP, both
of which are self-contained hard suits that incorporate propulsion units. The
Newtsuit is constructed from cast aluminum, while the WASP is of
glass-reinforced plastic body tube construction. The upper hull is made
from cast aluminum. The bottom dome is machined aluminum.
History = Early designs =
In 1715, British inventor John Lethbridge constructed a "diving suit".
Essentially a wooden barrel about 6 feet in length with two holes for the diver's
arms sealed with leather cuffs, and a 4-inch viewport of thick glass. It was
reportedly used to dive as deep as 60 feet, and was used to salvage
substantial quantities of silver from the wreck of the East Indiaman
Vansittart which sank in 1718 off the Cape Verde islands.
The first armored suit with real joints, designed as leather pieces with rings in
the shape of a spring, was designed by Englishman W. H. Taylor in 1838. The
diver's hands and feet were covered with leather. Taylor also devised a ballast
tank attached to the suit that could be filled with water to attain negative
buoyancy. While it was patented, the suit was never actually produced. It is
considered that its weight and bulk would have rendered it nearly immobile
underwater. Lodner D. Phillips designed the first
wholly enclosed ADS in 1856. His design comprised a barrel-shaped upper torso
with domed ends and included ball and socket joints in the articulated arms
and legs. The arms had joints at shoulder and elbow, and the legs at knee
and hip. The suit included a ballast tank, a viewing port, entrance through a
manhole cover on top, a hand-cranked propeller, and rudimentary manipulators
at the ends of the arms. Air was to be supplied from the surface via hose.
There is no indication, however, Phillips' suit was ever constructed.
The first properly anthropomorphic design of ADS, built by the Carmagnolle
brothers of Marseilles, France in 1882, featured rolling convolute joints
consisting of partial sections of concentric spheres formed to create a
close fit and kept watertight with a waterproof cloth. The suit had 22 of
these joints: four in each leg, six per arm, and two in the body of the suit.
The helmet possessed 25 individual 2-inch glass viewing ports spaced at the
average distance of the human eyes. Weighing 830 pounds, the Carmagnole ADS
never worked properly and its joints never were entirely waterproof. It is
now on display at the French National Navy Museum in Paris.
Another design was patented in 1894 by inventors John Buchanan and Alexander
Gordon from Melbourne, Australia. The construction was based on a frame of
spiral wires covered with waterproof material. The design was improved by
Alexander Gordon by attaching the suit to the helmet and other parts and
incorporating jointed radius rods in the limbs. This resulted in a flexible suit
which could withstand high pressure. The suit was manufactured by British firm
Siebe Gorman and trialed in Scotland in 1898.
American designer MacDuffy constructed the first suit to use ball bearings to
provide joint movement in 1914; it was tested in New York to a depth of 214
feet, but was not very successful. A year later, Harry L. Bowdoin of Bayonne,
New Jersey, made an improved ADS with oil-filled rotary joints. The joints use
a small duct to the interior of the joint to allow equalization of pressure.
The suit was designed to have four joints in each arm and leg, and one
joint in each thumb, for a total of eighteen. Four viewing ports and a
chest-mounted lamp were intended to assist underwater vision. Unfortunately
there is no evidence that Bowdoin's suit was ever built, or that it would have
worked if it had been. Atmospheric diving suits built by German
firm Neufeldt and Kuhnke were used during the salvage of gold and silver
bullion from the wreck of the British ship SS Egypt, an 8,000 ton P&O liner
that sank in May 1922. The suit was relegated to duties as an observation
chamber at the wreck's depth, and was successfully used to direct mechanical
grabs which opened up the bullion storage. In 1917, Benjamin F. Leavitt of
Traverse City, Michigan, dived on the SS Pewabic which sank to a depth of 182
feet in Lake Huron in 1865, salvaging 350 tons of copper ore. In 1923, he went
on to salvage the wreck of the British schooner Cape Horn which lay in 220 feet
of water off Pichidangui, Chile, salvaging $600,000 worth of copper.
Leavitt's suit was of his own design and construction. The most innovative aspect
of Leavitt's suit was the fact that it was completely self-contained and needed
no umbilical, the breathing mixture being supplied from a tank mounted on
the back of the suit. The breathing apparatus incorporated a scrubber and an
oxygen regulator and could last for up to a full hour.
In 1924 the Reichsmarine tested the second generation of the Neufeldt and
Kuhnke suit to 530 feet, but limb movement was very difficult and the
joints were judged not to be fail-safe, in that if they were to fail, there was
a possibility that the suit's integrity could be impaired. However, these suits
were used by the Germans as armored divers during World War II and were
later taken by the Western Allies after the war.
In 1952, Alfred A. Mikalow constructed an ADS employing ball and socket joints,
specifically for the purpose of locating and salvaging sunken treasure. The suit
was reportedly capable of diving to depths of 1,000 feet and was used
successfully to dive on the sunken vessel SS City of Rio de Janeiro in 328
feet of water near Fort Point, San Francisco. Mikalow's suit had various
interchangeable instruments which could be mounted on the end of the arms in
place of the usual manipulators. It carried seven 90-cubic foot high
pressure cylinders to provide breathing gas and control buoyancy. The ballast
compartment covered the gas cylinders. For communication, the suit used
hydrophones. = The modern suit =
Peress' Tritonia Although various atmospheric suits had
been developed during the Victorian era, none of these suits had been able to
overcome the basic design problem of constructing a joint which would remain
flexible and watertight at depth without seizing up under pressure.
Pioneering British diving engineer, Joseph Salim Peress, invented the first
truly usable atmospheric diving suit, the Tritonia, in 1932 and was later
involved in the construction of the famous JIM suit. Having a natural talent
for engineering design, he challenged himself to construct an ADS that would
keep divers dry and at atmospheric pressure, even at great depth. In 1918,
Peress began working for WG Tarrant at Byfleet, United Kingdom, where he was
given the space and tools to develop his ideas about constructing an ADS. His
first attempt was an immensely complex prototype machined from solid stainless
steel. In 1923, Peress was asked to design a
suit for salvage work on the wreck of SS Egypt which had sunk in the English
Channel. He declined, on the grounds that his prototype suit was too heavy
for a diver to handle easily, but was encouraged by the request to begin work
on a new suit using lighter materials. By 1929 he believed he had solved the
weight problem, by using cast magnesium instead of steel, and had also managed
to improve the design of the suit's joints by using a trapped cushion of oil
to keep the surfaces moving smoothly. The oil, which was virtually
non-compressible and readily displaceable, would allow the limb
joints to move freely at depths of 200 fathoms, where the pressure was 520 psi.
Peress claimed that the Tritonia suit could function at 1,200 ft although this
was never proven. In 1930, Peress revealed the Tritonia
suit. By May it had completed trials and was publicly demonstrated in a tank at
Byfleet. In September Peress' assistant Jim Jarret dived in the suit to a depth
of 123 m in Loch Ness. The suit performed perfectly, the joints proving
resistant to pressure and moving freely even at depth. The suit was offered to
the Royal Navy which turned it down, stating that Navy divers never needed to
descend below 90 m. In October 1935 Jarret made a successful deep dive to
more than 90 m on the wreck of the RMS Lusitania off south Ireland, followed by
a shallower dive to 60 metres in the English Channel in 1937 after which, due
to lack of interest, the Tritonia suit was retired.
The development in atmospheric pressure suits stagnated in the 1940s through
1960s, as efforts were concentrated on solving the problems of deep diving by
dealing with the physiological problems of ambient pressure diving instead of
avoiding them by isolating the diver from the pressure. Although the advances
in ambient pressure diving were significant, the limitations brought
renewed interest to the development of the ADS in the late 1960s.
The JIM suit The Tritonia suit spent about 30 years
in an engineering company's warehouse in Glasgow, where it was discovered, with
Peress' help, by two partners in the British firm Underwater Marine
Equipment, Mike Humphrey and Mike Borrow, in the mid-1960s. UMEL would
later classify Peress' suit as the "A.D.S Type I", a designation system
that would be continued by the company for later models. In 1969, Peress was
asked to become a consultant to the new company created to develop the JIM suit,
named in honour of the diver Jim Jarret. The first JIM suit was completed in
November 1971 and underwent trials aboard HMS Reclaim in early 1972. In
1976, the JIM suit set a record for the longest working dive below 490 feet,
lasting five hours and 59 minutes at a depth of 905 feet. The first JIM suits
were constructed from cast magnesium for its high strength-to-weight ratio and
weighed approximately 1,100 pounds in air including the diver. They were 6 ft
6 inches in height and had a maximum operating depth of 1,500 feet. The suit
had a positive buoyancy of 15 to 50 pounds. Ballast was attached to the
suit's front and could be jettisoned from within, allowing the operator to
ascend to the surface at approximately 100 feet per minute. The suit also
incorporated a communication link and a jettisonable umbilical connection. The
original JIM suit had eight annular oil-supported universal joints, one in
each shoulder and lower arm, and one at each hip and knee. The JIM operator
received air through an oral/nasal mask that attached to a lung-powered scrubber
that had a life-support duration of approximately 72 hours, although actual
survival for this time would have been unlikely due to thermal transfer through
the magnesium body. As technology improved and operational
knowledge grew, Oceaneering upgraded their fleet of JIMs. The magnesium
construction was replaced with glass-reinforced plastic and the single
joints with segmented ones, each allowing seven degrees of motion, and
when added together giving the operator a very great range of motion. In
addition, the four-port domed top of the suit was replaced by a transparent
acrylic one that was taken from Wasp, this allowed the operator a
much-improved field of vision. Trials were also carried out by the Ministry of
Defence on a flying Jim suit powered from the surface through an umbilical
cable. This resulted in a hybrid suit with the ability of working on the sea
bed as well as mid water. In addition to upgrades to the JIM
design, other variations of the original suit were constructed. The first, named
the SAM Suit, was a completely aluminium model. A smaller and lighter suit, it
was more anthropomorphic than the original JIMs and was depth-rated to
1,000 feet. Attempts were made to limit corrosion by the use of a chromic
anodizing coating applied to the arm and leg joints, which gave them an unusual
green color. The SAM suit stood at 6 feet 3 inches in height, and had a
life-support duration of 20 hours. Only three SAM suits would be produced by
UMEL before the design was shelved. The second, named the JAM suit, was
constructed of glass-reinforced plastic and was depth-rated for around 2,000
feet. Current suits
In 1987, the "Newtsuit" was developed by the Canadian engineer Phil Nuytten. The
Newtsuit is constructed to function like a 'submarine you can wear', allowing the
diver to work at normal atmospheric pressure even at depths of over 1,000
feet. Made of wrought aluminium, it had fully articulated joints so the diver
can move more easily underwater. The life-support system provides 6–8 hours
of air, with an emergency back-up supply of an additional 48 hours. The Newtsuit
was used to salvage the bell from the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in
1995. A more recent design by Nuytten is the Exosuit, a relatively lightweight
suit intended for marine research. The ADS 2000 was developed jointly with
OceanWorks International and the US Navy in 1997, as an evolution of the Newtsuit
to meet US Navy requirements. The ADS2000 provides increased depth
capability for the US Navy's Submarine Rescue Program. Manufactured from forged
T6061 aluminum alloy it uses an advanced articulating joint design based on the
Newtsuit joints. Capable of operating in up to 2,000 feet of seawater for a
normal mission of up to six hours it has a self-contained, automatic life support
system. Additionally, the integrated dual thruster system allows the pilot to
navigate easily underwater. It became fully operational and certified by the
US Navy off southern California on August 1, 2006, when Chief Navy Diver
Daniel Jackson submerged to 2,000 feet. Limitations of current ADS technology
Despite today's advanced naval engineering knowledge, the enormous
engineering design challenges posed by deep ocean environment over space or
other extreme environments and human body anatomy and physiology have led to
a number of limitations in ADS technology. Most high priority diving
missions still prefer traditional wet suit techniques due to logistics and
cost associated with ADS deployment and capabilities.
= Biomechanical joint mobility = The current ADS systems use a
continuously sealed rotary joint which cannot move to perfectly match the human
diver's joint mobility. This prevents natural movements of the diver such as
bending and picking up a sample on the ocean floor. Other natural movements
that are impossible with the current ADS include rotation of the helmet and the
suit has blind spots. = Manipulation =
Since the early evolution of ADS technology in the late 1800s, two jawed
claws have been preferred as end effectors for deep sea grasping. Current
ADS and Remotely operated underwater vehicle have end effectors with simply 1
DOF). This rudimentary manipulation results in excessive time spent working
a problem underwater, development of task specific tools that can be operated
by the pliers or acceptance that a specific job simply can't be
accomplished. Since 2014 robotics scientist Bhargav Gajjar of Vishwa
Robotics and MIT is developing a teleoperated, human like end effector
that mimics the dexterity of a human hand that would provide significant
benefit to the underwater industry by expanding the range of operations a
diver in an atmospheric suit, or a pilot of an ROV can accomplish.
= Surface support = In terms of surface support the ADS
requires less support than saturation system, but more than the average ROV
work package. = Deck space and weight =
The ADS footprint and load generally follows that of surface support; less
than saturation systems but more than ROVs.
References Further reading
Harris, Gary L. Ironsuit: The History of the Atmospheric Diving Suit. Best Pub.
Co. ISBN 0-941332-25-X. External links
ADS database in therebreathersite.nl "Metal Diving Suit Has Lamps and Phone",
January 1931, Popular Mechanics "Robot Diving Ball To Speed Deep Sea
Salvage" Popular Mechanics, September 1935
Hard Suit Historic Armored Suits
Atmospheric suits US Navy Chief goes to 2,000 feet