Diving air compressor
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A Diving Air Compressor is a gas compressor, which can fill diving cylinders with high pressure air that is pure enough to be used as a breathing gas.
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[edit] Machinery
Modern diving compressors are three or four stage-reciprocating air compressors that are lubricated with a very high grade compressor oil (a few use ceramic lined cylinders with ‘O’ rings, not piston rings, requiring no lubrication). Oil lubricated compressor operators must only use lubricants specified by the compressor's manufacturer. Special filters are used to clean the air of any residual oil (see "Air purity").
The compression process helps remove water from the gas making it dry, which is good for reducing rust in diving cylinders and freezing of diving regulators but causes dehydration, a factor in decompression sickness, in divers who breathe the gas.
[edit] Air purity
In addition the compressed air output from the compressor must be filtered to make it fit for use as a breathing gas. The following filters remove:
- Water - silica gel, activated alumina or a molecular sieve
- Oil - activated carbon or a molecular sieve
Periodically the gas produced by a compressor must be tested to ensure it meets air purity standards. The following impurities are checked:
- Carbon dioxide
- Carbon monoxide
- Lubricating oil vapour
- Nitrogen dioxide
- Odor and taste
- Solid particles
- Water vapor
[edit] The bank
Often compressors are connected to a "bank" of large, high-pressure cylinders to store compressed gas, for use at peak times. As cheap and low-powered compressors are relatively slow at pumping gas, the bank can filled automatically during idle periods storing a large volume of pressurized air so that a batch of cylinders can be filled quickly one after the other without being delayed by the slow running compressor.
The "cascade system" is used to decant economically from banks of storage cylinders so that the maximum possible gas is removed from the bank. This involves filling a diving cylinder by decanting from the bank cylinder with the lowest pressure that is higher than the diving cylinder's pressure and then from the next higher pressure bank cylinder in succession until the diving cylinder is full. The system maximises the use of low pressure bank gas and minmises the use of high pressure bank gas.
[edit] Filling heat
If diving cylinders are filled too quickly, the gas inside them becomes hot, due to adiabatic heating, increasing in pressure, which results in a drop in pressure when the cylinder cools later. Cylinders are often filled at a rate of less than 1 bar (100 kPa or 15 lbf/in²) per second to reduce this increase in temperature. In an attempt to cool the cylinder when filling, some people “wet fill”, immersing their cylinders in a cool water bath. This increases the risk of internal cylinder corrosion due to moisture from damp components entering the cylinder during filling.
[edit] Gas blending
Compressors are often linked to a gas blending panel connected to a bank of oxygen and helium cylinders.
