Fire Extinguisher Uses Sound Instead of Chemicals in Extinguishing Fire

The Sound that Extinguishes Fires (Photo Credits)

British website, The Independent has featured a fire extinguisher that stops the spread of fire using sound. “Two engineering students from George Mason University in Virginia have invented a potentially revolutionary fire extinguisher that uses low-frequency sound waves instead of water, gas or foam. Demonstrated in the video below, the cylindrical device, smaller than many more traditional fire extinguishers, is held about a foot away from flames and immediately snuffs them out.”

Fire Sprinkler Watch how the sound extinguished the fire here.

Sound Versus Fire

According to CNET.com the idea is to decrease the oxygen that makes a fire spread. “The technology is based on the way sound waves displace oxygen as they move through physical space — oxygen that fire feeds on. If you can suffocate a fire, you can extinguish it, so the pair set to work. They discovered that music is unsuitable — the sound waves it produces are inconsistent. A higher frequency sound caused the flames to vibrate, but that was all. The lower frequencies — 30 to 60 hertz — seemed to be the so-called “Goldilocks zone” at which the waves were able to effectively keep the oxygen from the flames long enough to suffocate them. The next step was the development of a portable, handheld extinguisher. DARPA’s device, for example, was a large machine that can’t be easily moved around. The prototype they developed consists of the sound frequency generator, a small amplifier, and a collimator made out of a cardboard tube with a hole at the end, to focus the waves in a specific direction.”

Firefighters Read the rest of the article here.

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PBS.Org wowed the invention saying the subwoofers extinguishing fire is like a scene cut out in a futuristic movie.

“The extinguisher works by pulsing air across the base of the flame, the boundary layer at which the combusted material produces the flame itself. The deep sound produces successive blasts of air which disrupt the process of combustion. Eventually, the flame peters out. The waterless extinguisher could be used in a variety of situations. Tran suggests that they could be installed in kitchen hoods to quickly kill grease fires. Server rooms packed with computers could also benefit. And among fire departments, it’s likely to be combined with other tools available to firefighters, giving them a leg up on the biggest of blazes.”

Read the rest of the write-up here.

Will you get something like this for your home once it is commercially available?