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🤿 Decompression Sickness and Nitrogen Off-Gassing

Explore the physics of nitrogen absorption and release during a dive: Henry's law, multi-tissue gas loading, and why ascent rate — not depth — determines decompression sickness risk.

Medicine & Biophysics3DModerate60 FPS

The simulator demonstrates how ambient pressure during a simulated dive drives nitrogen dissolution into multiple tissue compartments according to Henry's law, how those compartments load and unload at different characteristic rates based on their simulated perfusion, and how an ascent rate that outpaces a compartment's diffusion capacity produces supersaturation and simulated bubble formation, independent of the maximum depth reached.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Set a target descent depth and bottom time to control how much nitrogen loads into each tissue compartment, then choose an ascent rate and decide whether to include staged decompression or safety stops. Watch the fast and slow compartment nitrogen levels update in real time, and observe how a rapid, unstopped ascent pushes one or more compartments into supersaturation while a slow, staged ascent keeps every compartment within its safe off-gassing limit.

💡 Did You Know?

Did you know a modest, shallow dive followed by a panicked bolt to the surface can carry more decompression sickness risk than a deep, well-planned dive with a slow ascent and proper stops? The danger comes from how fast pressure drops relative to your tissues' diffusion speed, not from how deep you went.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore the physics of nitrogen absorption and release during a dive: Henry's law, multi-tissue gas loading, and why ascent rate — not depth — determines decompression sickness risk.

divingphysicsdecompression sicknesshenrys lawgas lawsphysiologypressurescuba

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install