if you are sitting inside a diving bell or moon pool deep in the ocean, what happens when you dip you feet in the water that is under high pressure? Would the pressure crush your feet right when you step your feet in?
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Any oil well deep sea divers here? What does it feel like being so deep, other then possibly chilly, does it feel any different from being 2m under water? Also how do you even get into that profession?
Simple, The air pressure in the bell = the water pressure = the air pressure in your lungs. Its equalized all the way around. Except for the entrapped air bubbles in your neoprene wetsuit which may be 1/4″ thick at the surface but down deep seems like a cheap thin tee shirt.
In the actual bell/moon pool room, the pressure will be equal, with all the problems that come with it as others have explained.
Some bigger setups have separate compartments that can be at a different pressure, but these have to be separated from the water with a pressure tight door.
If you open these doors without slowly equalizing the pressure first, you get the infamous Byford Dolphin incident. Quotes (NSFL):
>!Medical investigations were carried out on the remains of the four divers and of one of the tenders. The most notable finding was the presence of large amounts of fat in large arteries and veins and in the cardiac chambers, as well as intravascular fat in organs, especially the liver. … The autopsy suggested that rapid bubble formation in the blood denatured the lipoprotein complexes, rendering the lipids insoluble. The blood of the three divers left intact inside the chambers likely boiled instantly, stopping their circulation. The fourth diver was dismembered and mutilated by the blast forcing him out through the partially blocked doorway and would have died instantly.!<
>!… forced through the crescent-shaped opening measuring 60 centimetres (24 in) long created by the jammed interior trunk door. With the escaping air and pressure, it included bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity, which resulted in fragmentation of his body, followed by expulsion of all of the internal organs of his chest and abdomen, except the trachea and a section of small intestine, and of the thoracic spine. These were projected some distance, one section being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door.!<
While this wasn’t super deep, this chef rescued from a sunken ship shows what it’s like being in the water in a sunken space:
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On top of what others have already addressed regarding the pressure in the bell being equal to the water pressure, your foot wouldn’t really be crushed anyways. There aren’t any hollow spaces to be compressed. The main areas of your body that are susceptible to be crushed by pressure like that are the air cavities: your lungs, air ways, sinuses, etc. There are some limits to this, mainly once you get to pressures that are able to compress water a meaningful amount.
This old reddit post covers the compression of water:
How much pressure is needed to compress water?
by inaskscience
No, the air pressure in the diving bell is equal to the pressure of the water, so to you it will feel like it’s just regular water.
However, at their high air pressures they can’t actually fill the bell with air, as that would kill you (nitrogen becomes toxic), so they’d fill it with helium and oxygen…and then you [sound like a chipmunk](https://youtu.be/ACXlVEomWZY?t=94).
No. The pressure inside the diving bell is the same as the pressure of the water around it – IF the bottom is open. If your inside a closed structure, the pressure inside could be lower, but it would increase to the surrounding pressure as soon as an opening was created
No, the interior of the bell would be similarly pressurized. If it’s an open bell you wouldn’t be able to go super deep before the pressure crushed you, unless you had equal air pressure on the inside.
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