A physiological model of gas pockets in crevices and their behavior under compression

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.