Mark 12 Diving Helmet

[Bowie Maur]

Anicon of deep sea diving, the Mark V Dress represents the early 20th century innovation in marine technology that enabled divers to work at significant depths for the first time. It was used by the U.S. Navy from 1916-1984, and is still used in the commercial industry in environments with especially strong currents.

Weighing a little over 55lbs, the Mark V helmet and breastplate are made of spun copper and tobin bronze. The helmet is screwed down a quarter turn onto the breastplate, which is attached to the canvas dress with four brails. The hat has four glass ports, including the front faceplate, which opens outward.

Used for buoyancy control, the leather weight belt keeps the diver submerged when his lungs expand during natural intake of breath, and as the dress inflates. The belt is attached with adjustable harnesses and a crotch strap, and its lead blocks weigh a total of 84lbs.

The hat has four glass ports, including the front faceplate, which opens outward. Between the faceplate and side port, the spit cock allows the diver to suck water into his mouth and spit it at the faceplate to defog. Shown in detail: communication port (left) and air port (right).

A diving helmet is a rigid head enclosure with a breathing gas supply used in underwater diving. They are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface-supplied diving, though some models can be used with scuba equipment. The upper part of the helmet, known colloquially as the hat or bonnet, may be sealed directly to the diver using a neck dam, connected to a diving suit by a lower part, known as a breastplate, or corselet, depending on regional language preferences. or simply rest on the diver's shoulders, with an open bottom, for shallow water use.

The helmet isolates the diver's head from the water, allows the diver to see clearly underwater, provides the diver with breathing gas, protects the diver's head when doing heavy or dangerous work, and usually provides voice communications with the surface (and possibly other divers). If a helmeted diver becomes unconscious but is still breathing, most helmets will remain in place and continue to deliver breathing gas until the diver can be rescued. In contrast, the scuba regulator typically used by recreational divers must be held in the mouth by bite grips, and it can fall out of an unconscious diver's mouth and result in drowning.[2]

Before the invention of the demand regulator, all diving helmets used a free-flow design. Gas was delivered at an approximately constant rate, independent of the diver's breathing, and flowed out through an exhaust valve against a slight over-pressure. Most modern helmets incorporate a demand valve so the helmet only delivers breathing gas when the diver inhales. Free-flow helmets use much larger quantities of gas than demand helmets, which can cause logistical difficulties and is very expensive when special breathing gases (such as heliox) are used. They also produce a constant noise inside the helmet, which can cause communication difficulties. Free-flow helmets are still preferred for some applications of hazardous materials diving, because their positive-pressure nature can prevent the ingress of hazardous material in case the integrity of the suit or helmet is compromised. They also remain relatively common in shallow-water air diving, where gas consumption is of little concern, and in nuclear diving because they must be disposed of after some period of use due to irradiation; free-flow helmets are significantly less expensive[citation needed] to purchase and maintain than demand types.

Most modern helmet designs are sealed to the diver's skin at the neck using a neoprene or latex "neck dam" which is independent of the suit, allowing the diver a choice of suits depending on the dive conditions. When divers must work in contaminated environments such as sewage or dangerous chemicals, the helmet (usually of the free-flow type or using a series exhaust valve system) is directly sealed to a dry suit made of a fabric with a smooth vulcanised rubber outer coating to completely isolate and protect the diver. This equipment is the modern equivalent of the historic "standard diving dress".

The usual meaning of diving helmet is a piece of diving equipment that encases the user's head and delivers breathing gas to the diver, but the term "diving helmet", or "cave diving helmet" may also refer to a safety helmet like a climbing helmet or caving helmet that covers the top and back of the head, but is not sealed. These may be worn with a full-face mask or half mask to provide impact protection when diving under an overhead, and may also be used to mount lights and video cameras.[3][4]

An alternative to the diving helmet that allows communication with the surface is the full-face diving mask. These cover most of the diver's face, specifically including eyes, nose and mouth, and are held onto their head by adjustable straps. Like the diving helmet, the full-face mask is part of the breathing apparatus.[5]

The first successful diving helmets were produced by the brothers Charles and John Deane in the 1820s.[8] Inspired by a fire accident he witnessed in a stable in England,[9] he designed and patented a "Smoke Helmet" to be used by firemen in smoke-filled areas in 1823. The apparatus comprised a copper helmet with an attached flexible collar and garment. A long leather hose attached to the rear of the helmet was to be used to supply air - the original concept being that it would be pumped using a double bellows. A short pipe allowed breathed air to escape. The garment was made of leather or airtight cloth, secured by straps.

The brothers lacked money to build the equipment themselves, so they sold the patent to their employer, Edward Barnard. In 1827, the first smoke helmets were built, by German-born British engineer Augustus Siebe. In 1828 the brothers decided to find another application for their device and converted it into a diving helmet. They marketed the helmet with a loosely attached "diving suit" so that a diver could perform salvage work, but only in a mainly vertical position (otherwise water entered the suit).[8]

In 1829 the Deane brothers sailed from Whitstable for trials of their new underwater apparatus, establishing the diving industry in the town. In 1834 Charles used his diving helmet and suit in a successful attempt on the wreck of Royal George at Spithead, during which he recovered 28 of the ship's cannons. In 1836, John Deane recovered from the discovered Mary Rose shipwreck timbers, guns, longbows, and other items.

By 1836 the Deane brothers had produced the world's first diving manual, Method of Using Deane's Patent Diving Apparatus, which explained in detail the workings of the apparatus and pump, and safety precautions.

In the 1830s the Deane brothers asked Siebe to apply his skill to improve their underwater helmet design.[10] Expanding on improvements already made by another engineer, George Edwards, Siebe produced his own design; a helmet fitted to a full length watertight canvas diving suit. The equipment included an exhaust valve in the helmet, which allowed excess air to escape without allowing water to flow in. The closed diving suit, connected to an air pump on the surface, became the first effective standard diving dress, and the prototype of hard-hat rigs still in use today.

Siebe introduced various modifications on his diving dress design to accommodate the requirements of the salvage team on the wreck of HMS Royal George, including making the helmet detachable from the corselet; his improved design gave rise to the typical standard diving dress which revolutionised underwater civil engineering, underwater salvage, commercial diving and naval diving.[10]

Commercial diver and inventor Joe Savoie is credited with inventing the helmet neck dam in the 1960s, which made possible a new era of lightweight helmets, including the Kirby Morgan Superlite series (an adaption of Morgan's existing "Band Mask" into a full helmet.) Savoie did not patent this invention, though he did hold patents on other diving equipment,[11][12] which allowed widespread development of the concept by other manufacturers. The neck dam seals the helmet around the diver's neck in the same way that a dry suit neck seal works, using similar materials. This allows the helmet to be carried on the head and not supported by the shoulders on a corselet (breastplate), so the helmet can turn with the head and can therefore be a much closer fit, which considerably reduces the volume, and as the helmet must be ballasted for neutral buoyancy, the overall weight is reduced.[13] Neck dams were already in use on space suits in Project Mercury, and neck seals had been used on dry suits even longer,[14] but Savoie was the first to use the technology to seal the underside of a diving helmet.

The original standard diving equipment was a copper helmet or "bonnet" (British English) clamped onto a copper breastplate or "corselet", which transferred the weight to the diver's shoulders. This assembly was clamped to a rubber gasket on the dry suit to make a watertight seal. Breathing air and later sometimes helium based gas mixtures were pumped through a hose to a non-return inlet valve on the helmet or breastplate, and released to the surroundings through an exhaust valve.

Historically, deep sea diving helmets were described by the number of bolts used to clamp them to the rubber gasket of the diving suit, and where applicable, the number of bolts used to secure the bonnet (helmet) to the corselet (breastplate). This ranged from the no bolt, two, three, and four bolt helmets; corselets with six, eight, or 12 bolts; and Two-Three, Twelve-Four, and Twelve-Six bolt helmets.[citation needed] For example, the US twelve-four helmets used 12 bolts to clamp the breastplate to the suit, and four bolts to seal the helmet to the breastplate. The no-bolt helmet used a spring-loaded clamp to secure the helmet to corselet over the suit gasket, and many helmets were sealed to the breastplate by a 1/8 turn interrupted screw thread. Swedish helmets were distinctive for using a neck ring instead of a corselet, a precursor of more modern diving equipment, but cumbersome and uncomfortable for the diver. A further distinction is the number of viewports, or "lights", usually one, three or four. The front light could be opened for air and communications when the diver was out of the water. This equipment is commonly referred to as Standard diving dress and "heavy gear."[citation needed]

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