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Fighting fires with sound frequencies

washingtonpost.com

31–32 of 32 posts

Re: Fighting fires with sound frequencies

#31
“One of the problems with sound waves is that they do not cool the fuel,” Isman said. “So even if you get the fire out, it will rekindle if you don’t either take away the fuel or cool it.”

Not to dumb it down, but I can see this being an effective tool for preventing grease flare-ups in my grill. It won't cool the coals, but it will kill the flames.

Re: Fighting fires with sound frequencies

#32
post #4

How does it work? I mean is it a new discovery that some frequencies create resonance and stop the convection and prevent oxygenation of the flame? Or is it just using sheer power to "blow" the flame off? but instead of a blower, it just uses very high powered speaker in low frequency?

It pushes/removes the air, so the fire goes out. As I read, this was something that's been researched but it's not useful for anything but blowing out candles, since in a real fire whatever's burning will just reignite since the burning material is not cooled or anything. Simply, the flame is suppressed momentarily.

Could be useful if a home fire alarm can detect a small fire and start the fight at same time in places when the use of water is not advisable (libraries).

Or you could equipate an electric ashtray with this.

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