| Title | Engineering Students Use Infrasound Extinguisher to Snuff Out Fires | |
| Date | Saturday March 28 2015, @07:30PM | |
| Author | CoolHand | |
| Topic | ||
| from the increase-subwoofer-popularity dept. | ||
George Mason University engineering students have designed a hand-held infrasonic extinguisher to snuff out fires without chemicals or water:
When Seth Robertson and Viet Tran from George Mason University hatched their senior project plan, there were plenty of raised eyebrows. But the doubters no doubt ate their words when the two engineering students debuted their creation: a fire extinguisher that successfully puts out flames with sound waves.
Their initial idea was to employ high-pitched tones, but as it turned out, low-frequency sounds were the ticket, "like the thump-thump bass in hip-hop," Tran told the Washington Post.
By hitting fire with the low-frequency sound waves in the 30 to 60 hertz range, the device separates oxygen from fuel. “The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting,” Tran said.
Conventional fire extinguishers typically employ water or chemicals which cause damage that compounds the havoc wrought by the fire itself; by comparison, a sound-based extinguisher would be great. The article does not specify how many decibels the extinguisher projects or the frequency used, but let's hope its range doesn't drop into the 17Hz range or even the 5-9Hz range.
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printed from SoylentNews, Engineering Students Use Infrasound Extinguisher to Snuff Out Fires on 2024-04-25 02:28:59