Method for assessing the severity of underwater dive and use of said method in a dive computer

A method of decompression during an underwater dive, comprising the following steps:

• providing a dive computer comprising,
• at least one display unit, and
• at least one processing unit comprising a processor adapted to execute a logic program stored in a non-transitory computer readable recording medium, and units adapted to detect predetermined physical dive-related parameters;
• wherein the logic program performs the following steps:
• identifying a plurality of biological tissues intended to represent the body of a diver;
• associating each tissue with a half-time and/or a corresponding threshold value, the half-time identifying a gas uptake rate by an associated tissue, the threshold value defining a maximum amount of pressure above ambient pressure that the associated tissue is able to tolerate;
• measuring dive time;
• and
• determining a depth profile of the dive,
• wherein, as the dive time and/or depth values increases, the threshold value decreases and/or the half-time value of at least one tissue increases.

A dive computer comprising:

• at least one display unit;
• and
• at least one processing unit comprising a processor adapted to execute a logic program stored in a non-transitory computer readable recording medium, and units adapted to detect predetermined physical dive-related parameters,
• wherein said logic program consists in a decompression algorithm comprising one or more of the following steps:
• (a) determining an amount of gas inhaled by a diver;
• (b) measuring dive time;
• (c) determining a depth profile of the dive;
• (d) calculating a dive severity index based on a function of steps (a), (b) and (c);
• (e) assessing the severity based on the step (d) of calculating the dive severity index,
• wherein the steps (a), (b), (c) and (d) are performed in real-time mode, at each instant of the dive time of the diver, and
• wherein step (d) is performed according to the following formula:
• DSI=k1*f(GAS)*f(D)*f(T)
• where:
• DSI is the dive severity index,
• k1 is an arbitrary constant,
• f(GAS) is a function of the inhaled gas,
• f(D) is a function of dive depth, and
• f(T) is a function of the dive time.