Topic summary
Decompression efficiency
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Decompression theory.
Efficiency and safety
Two criteria that have been used in comparing decompression schedules are efficiency and safety, where decompression efficiency is defined as the ability of a schedule to provide acceptable safety from decompression sickness in the shortest time spent decompressing, and decompression safety, or converely, risk, is measured by the probability of decompression sickness incurred by following a given schedule for a given dive profile. Since it is impracticable to eliminate all risk using current knowledge of the effects of several variables, risk is estimated by statistical analysis of the recorded outcomes of exposure and decompression profiles, and an acceptable risk is stipulated, which may vary depending on the circumstances of the application.