This title might
sound crazy, but from now on it can be a possibility. Two engineering students,
Viet Tran and Seth Robertson, discovered that water and toxic chemicals aren’t
the only ways to extinguish fire.
Using speakers to extinguish fire
The two
engineers weren’t the ‘real inventors’ of this method, but they were inspired
by an experiment of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In
2012, this US Defence Agency showed us how to extinguish a fire blaze by using
speakers. The fire dies because of a two-pronged attack of the low frequencies.
I will not explain the complicated physical process, but in summary: the sound
increases the air speed, which makes the air thinner, and this process results
in a combustion. But at the same time, the sound also disturbs the surface of
the fuel that increases vaporisation, an effect that shows an opposite
reaction: the flame is cooling down. Another experiment of DARPA is trying to
extinguish a flame by creating an ionic wind.
The two
engineers also discovered that low-frequency sound waves, those you hear when
you are dancing on Hip hop music, can douse a blaze. This ingenious experiment
by Seth and Viet can make water unnecessary, in the context of putting out a
fire of course.
So next
time you put lasagna in your microwave without removing its aluminum package,
you will be able to douse a possible fire with ‘a woofer’, the device using the
technology of the low frequencies.
Drones to put out forest fires
But the innovators are more ambitious: they assume their technology could be
mounted to the nowadays-popular drones. In this way, they can contain large
forest fires or blow out urban blazes. The
researchers of DARPA were already looking for industrial and military goals of
their experiment, like using the technology of the speakers in cockpits and
ship holds to prevent them from disaster. The two engineers also think their
innovative product could be useful in a larger context and maybe even in space:
"In space, extinguisher contents spread
all over. But you can direct sound waves without gravity," explains
Robertson.”
So what do
you think? When you’re in trouble and in the middle of a conflagration (I hope
you’ll never be in this situation), would you like to use ‘a woozer’ to
extinguish the fire, or do you believe more in the traditional ways of blowing
out a blaze?
Comments below please!
Comments below please!
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