Bühlmann decompression algorithm

The Bühlmann decompression model is a Haldanian which models the way inert gases enter and leave the human body as the ambient pressure changes. Versions are used to create decompression tables and in personal dive computers to compute no-decompression limits and decompression schedules for dives in real-time, allowing divers to plan the depth and duration for dives and the required decompression stops.

The model (Haldane, 1908) assumes perfusion limited gas exchange and multiple parallel tissue compartments and uses an inverse exponential model for in-gassing and out-gassing, both of which are assumed to occur in the dissolved phase.

Multiple sets of parameters were developed by Swiss physician Dr. Albert A. Bühlmann, who did research into decompression theory at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. The results of Bühlmann's research that began in 1959 were published in a 1983 German book whose English translation was entitled Decompression-Decompression Sickness. The book was regarded as the most complete public reference on decompression calculations and was used soon after in dive computer algorithms.