Measurement of the depth-dependent resonance of water-loaded human lungs

An experiment was conducted to determine the response of the human lung to water-borne sound in the range of 20 to 500 Hz. A small pool inside a hyperbaric chamber was used to simulate four ambient pressure conditions spanning the range of recreational diving depths. Ten subjects were tested on two occasions each using three separate measures to evaluate the response of the subjects' lungs. With some notable exceptions, results were consistent between subjects and between measures. These indicate that human lungs can be reasonably modeled as a lumped single-degree-of-freedom system over the lower portion of the band of interest. Here, the surrounding fluid provides the dominant mass and the dominant stiffness is provided by the entrapped air with a small additional contribution from tissue elasticity. Measured resonances increase with the square root of ambient pressure from an average of 40 Hz with a quality factor of 1.8 at near-surface pressure to 73 Hz with a quality factor of 2.6 at an equivalent depth of 36.4 m. There is evidence of other resonances within or near the band of interest that may be attributable to nonvolumetric chest/lung modes, Helmholtz resonance, and/or resonance of gastrointestinal bubbles.