title: A physiological model of gas pockets in crevices and their behavior under compression.
abstract: The formation of bubbles in the body from dissolved gases during decompression causes a range of symptoms, often referred to as Decompression Sickness. It is likely that these bubbles grow from pre-existing nuclei. It has been proposed that such nuclei are pockets of gas that are stabilized against collapse under raised pressure, such as that experienced by deep-sea divers. This work explores the stabilization of gas pockets in crevices, in its application to the nucleation of bubbles in blood vessels. A model has been derived to describe the dynamics of a bubble in a crevice, assuming that gases diffuse in and out of the bubble via the crevice wall from the body tissues surrounding the crevice. The time-varying behavior of the bubble has been examined and it has been shown that a crevice bubble can survive compression by temporary variations in the gas-liquid interface curvature or by shrinking, its behavior being found to be strongly dependent upon the model parameters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, UK. michael.chappell@eng.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Chappell
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Payne
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001274:Atmospheric Pressure; D003664:Decompression; D005740:Gases; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological
chemical_list: D005740:Gases