Bureau Veritas Introduces New Rules for Diving Systems

Bureau Veritas, international classification society, has issued a new rule note covering the classification of diving systems.

The rules sets out requirements for the classification of professional diving systems ranging from surface-supplied systems for shallow water diving to complex saturation systems for deep sea diving.

The rules deal with the main safety issues in diving, including  human occupancy in pressurized chambers, supply and distribution of mixed breathing gas, safety of oxygen enriched environments, fire protection, fire-fighting and means for hyperbaric evacuation of divers in case of ship abandonment.

The rules are fully consistent with the IMO Code of Safety for Diving Systems and adopt industry best practices, including the recommendations of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) for diving systems and diving operations.

According to Bureau Veritas, the rule note addresses the scheme of certification of the diving sub-systems, such as diving bells, deck chambers, launch and recovery systems (LARS) and self-propelled hyperbaric lifeboats (SPHL), and also provides detailed requirements for the design and construction of pressure vessels for human occupancy (PVHO), life support systems, including breathing gas supply, distribution and temperature control, as well as communication systems.

The new rules are currently being applied in a high specification dynamically positioned (DP3) newbuild diving support vessel (DSV) with integrated diving systems offering both saturation and surface-supplied diving capabilities.