The safety limit must be the volume of air in the tubes. If you don't exhale enough to force all the air out of the tube you'll still be re-breathing the same air. Thinking aloud, you could have a one-way valve on each nostril, one in, one out. Air can only go up one nostril, out the other. I've seen one-way air valves used on the airline tubing to aquariums before, they stop water going back into the air pump if the mains power cuts off. They're only a few pence each in stirling,
This might be an answer. Go to your local pet shop, buy a meter of plastic tube and a couple of valves, then off to the DIY shop for some epoxy putty to make a 'nosepiece' and you're away...
Edit:
I've just realized what the implications of this are...
Hmmm, I think it is more difficult to seal off the nose area and make it comfortable at the same time. Some tubes have to be stuck into the nose and I hate that. How about a mouthpiece as used on snorkels? They can be bought seperately as spare part, but probably a cheap tourist snorkel is even cheaper. It would work as a gag and breathing tube at the same time and nose-breathing could be used to de- and inflate the hood. Of course it might be tricky to find the correct glue to seal it off properly.
PS: Adult healthy lungs have a capacity of about 3-5 litres. With normal breathing, it might inhale 50% of its capacity, which is still quite difficult to fit into a tube. A giant tube of 1 cm inside diameter has a volume of 236 cl per meter, if my calculation was right. So, 1.5 l - 236 cl = 1.264cl per normal breath, containing 21% of oxygen, which is 253cl vs. 300cl at free breathing. I think, this is enough to survive quite a while, climbing mountains (thin air) is probably more dangerous.
oops: The numbers are wrong, 3-5 l is indeed the lung capacity, but a normal breath is only 500 cl, maximum intake is 1 l. 1 l remains in the lungs, that is about 4 times as much as in the 1m tube.
(This post was last modified: 06 Nov 2010, 22:04 by Strappado.)
Great videos! Great suits (especially the first one - no bubbles)! But I think i will move them to another thread. Transparent latex? Or latex and sport? Probably the latter.
Fun 😁
youtube.com/watch?v=jq1cOLDJMfY
(This post was last modified: 22 Apr 2021, 20:36 by Like Ra.)
Not transparent but still on subject:
youtube.com/watch?v=5nyjSleyU1A
(This post was last modified: 22 Apr 2021, 20:36 by Like Ra.)