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The Daily Insight

How much air does a diver use?

Author

Caleb Butler

Updated on April 05, 2026

Example: A diver has a SAC rate of 25 psi/minute when diving with an 80-cubic-foot tank and a working pressure of 3,000 psi. The diver’s RMV ate is 0.67 cubic feet/minute. Example: A diver has a SAC rate of 1.7 bar/minute when diving with a 12-liter tank. The diver’s RMV rate is 20.4 liters/minute.

What is a good surface air consumption rate?

What Is A Good SAC Rate? There is no such thing as a good or bad SAC rate as this will differ between diver to diver. On average a new diver may equate a 25 or 27 litres per minute but a relaxed and experienced diver may equate 15 to 18 litres per minute.

How is diving air consumption calculated?

First, take the amount of air you consumed during the dive, and divide that by the total number of minutes of the dive, to find your consumption per minute.

What is surface air consumption?

SAC stands for Surface Air Consumption. Your Surface Air Consumption rate is a measurement of the amount of air you consume while breathing for one minute, on the surface.

What is a good RMV rate?

For this test, the average RMV is . 15.54 liters per minute. We can round this up to 15.5. This means the diver breathes about 15.5 liters each minute on the surface.

How do you calculate surface consumption rate?

SAC (Surface Air Consumption Rate) In order to calculate the SAC, you need to do the following: Divide the total air consumed by the total time in minutes of the dive. This gives you the consumption per minute. Take the consumption per minute and multiply that by the total pressure of the average depth of your dive.

How many liters of air are in a standard scuba tank?

The most common capacity for a scuba cylinder is 12 liters. Actually, it’s usually a bit smaller but we call it a 12-liter tank for simplicity. Besides the 12-liter tank, you can usually find 8-, 10-, 15-, and even 18-liter tanks. In the imperial system, usual sizes are 50, 63, 72 and 80 cubic feet.

How long will a scuba cylinder last at 20 meters?

Simply put, if a cylinder lasts 60 minutes on the surface, it will only last 20 minutes at 20 meters/66 feet/3 bar. And in reality, it may last even less time, because at depth you may be a little more excited and breathing a little faster!

How is RMV calculated?

Resting RMV is calculated by descending to a set depth (again 33 fsw or 34 ffw), noting starting pressure, hovering at that depth for 5 minutes, and noting ending pressure. In my courses, I actually have my students do this at 15 or 20 ffw during a 5 minute safety stop.

What is a good RMV diving?

How many Litres of air does a scuba tank hold?

Cylinders used for scuba typically have an internal volume (known as water capacity) of between 3 and 18 litres (0.11 and 0.64 cu ft) and a maximum working pressure rating from 184 to 300 bars (2,670 to 4,350 psi).

How do you calculate air consumption during a deep dive?

Air consumed during dive/dive time/total pressure at depth of dive = SAC per minute. So, as an example, we’ve done a dive to 10 meters/33 feet for 20 minutes, consuming 80 bars/1,200 psi of air. So the calculation would be: Empirical: 1200psi/20 minutes/2 = 30 psi per minute.

How much air does it take to scuba dive 20 meters?

140 bar x 10 litre cylinder = 1400 litres consumed during the dive. 1400 litres / 20 minutes = 70 litres / min air consumption rate at 20 meter depth. At 20 meters, the air is 3 times denser than at the surface so we divide by 3 to get a 23.3 litres/min Surface Air Consumption Rate.

What is the surface air consumption rate at 20 meters depth?

1400 litres / 20 minutes = 70 litres / min air consumption rate at 20 meter depth. At 20 meters, the air is 3 times denser than at the surface so we divide by 3 to get a 23.3 litres/min Surface Air Consumption Rate.

What is sursurface air consumption?

Surface Air Consumption is an expression of your air consumption during dive, with the depth of the dive taken out of the equation. As we all know, air consumption increases with depth due to the pressure increases the density but reduces the volume of the air we breathe…