Henry Albert Fleuss | |
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| Born | (1851-06-13)June 13, 1851 |
| Died | January 6, 1933(1933-01-06) (aged 81) |
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Henry Albert Fleuss (13 June 1851 – 6 January 1933)[1] was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver forSiebe, Gorman & Co. of London.
Fleuss was born inMarlborough, Wiltshire in 1851.[2]
In 1878 he was granted a patent which improvedrebreathers. His apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with (estimated) 50-60% O2 supplied from a copper tank and CO2 scrubbed by rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash, the system giving a duration of about three hours.[2][3] Fleuss tested his device in 1879 by spending an hour submerged in a water tank, then one week later by diving to a depth of 5.5m in open water, upon which occasion he was slightly injured when his assistants abruptly pulled him to the surface.
Fleuss's apparatus was first used under operational conditions in November 1880 by Alexander Lambert, lead diver of theSevern Tunnel construction project. Trained by Fleuss, he was able to close a submergedsluice door in the tunnel which had defeated the best efforts ofhard hat divers due to the danger of their air supply hoses becoming fouled on submerged debris, and the strong water currents in the workings.[2]
The same apparatus was later used several times to rescuemine workers in flooded workings.
Some time before theFirst World War, the Fleuss-Davis independent breathing set forhardhat divers appeared. This device consisted of two 10-cubic-foot (280 L) tanks, one each for compressed air andoxygen. The gases were mixed in a manifold between the two tanks and the diver's mouthpiece. The manufacturer claimed success of this unit to depths of 66 feet.[2]
Fleuss also invented the Fleuss vacuum pump, which was a double actionGuericke type pump which delivers an almost constant suction. It uses a cylinder divided in halves: as one half of the cylinder is filled with air, the other half is evacuating air to the atmosphere by one stroke of the pump. The next stroke reverses this action, producing the constant flow.
He died 6 January 1933 at Thorndon Cross,Okehampton, aged 81.[4]
