Henry Albert Fleuss (13 June 1851 – 6 January 1933) was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London. Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851. In 1878 he was granted a patent which improved rebreathers. 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. 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 the Severn Tunnel construction project. Trained by Fleuss, he was able to close a submerged

sluice Sluice ( ) is a word for a channel controlled at its head by a movable gate which is called a sluice gate. A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway and can be considered ...

door in the tunnel which had defeated the best efforts of hard hat divers due to the danger of their air supply hoses becoming fouled on submerged debris, and the strong water currents in the workings. The same apparatus was later used several times to rescue mine workers in flooded workings. Some time before the First World War, the Fleuss-Davis independent breathing set for

hardhat diver Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, which ...

s appeared. This device consisted of two tanks, one each for compressed air and oxygen. 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. Fleuss also invented the Fleuss vacuum pump, which was a double action

Guericke Otto von Guericke ( , , ; spelled Gericke until 1666; November 20, 1602 – May 11, 1686 ; November 30, 1602 – May 21, 1686 ) was a German scientist, inventor, and politician. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental me ...

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.

References

External links

Building the Severn Tunnel
* Turks and Caicos Islands postage stamp with an image of
Fleuss Oxygen Rebreathing Apparatus, 1878
Diving engineers British inventors People from Marlborough, Wiltshire 1851 births 1933 deaths {{UK-engineer-stub