On the use of a bubble formation model to calculate diving tables.

Previous decompression tables for humans were based upon unsupported assumptions because the underlying processes by which dissolved gas is liberated from blood and tissue were poorly understood. Some of those assumptions are now known to be wrong, and the recent formulation of a detailed mathematical model describing bubble nucleation has made it possible to calculate diving tables from established physical principles. To evaluate this approach, a comprehensive set of air diving tables has been developed and compared with those of the U.S. and British Navies. Conventional decompressions, altitude bends, no-stop thresholds, and saturation dives are all successfully described by one setting of four global nucleation parameters, which replace the U.S. Navy's matrices of M-values. Present air diving tables show great irregularity, even within sets created by the same authors. In contrast, this new approach is remarkably self-consistent, permitting accurate interpolation and extrapolation.