The respiratory minute volume tells you your average consumption of air while scuba diving.
It can be used to quickly make estimates on how long your tank will last underwater and help you in your dive plans.
During a previous dive to you used a L tank with a maximum tank pressure of bar.
The dive lasted minutes and you used up bar.
This leads to a respiratory minute volume of L/min. So, on average, you use up liters of air per minute when you’re underwater.
If you had spent the entire dive at the surface, the equivalent surface air consumption (SAC) would have been liters.
You can now use these numbers in the calculator above to plan your dives.