Firefighters might be snuffing blazes with deep-toned sound, in case a new device invented by two engineering students from Fairfax, Virginia, catches on. The footage was recently released by George Mason University, and it shows students demonstrating the new device that, as they claim, puts out fire with nothing but sound.
Seth Robertson and Vet Tran are both senior engineering students at the university, and you can rest assured you will hear their name a lot more if this device becomes mainstream and is used to fight fires.
The idea of using sound waves in order to quench a fire is not new at all. DARPA, US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has tested the idea before. Tran and Robertson, however, are the first ones who have turned the principle into a practical device.
So how can sound waves put out a fire? Some may be familiar with experiencing dub music not only with their ears but also with their body. For those that are into deep bass sounds would know; if your chest isn't rattling, it isn't happening, right? That's basically how the innovation of these young engineers works. Only with a little bit of difference; the portable gadget they've designed focuses the sound waves in a particular direction instead of spreading them.
Above all, sound waves can manipulate both oxygen and burning material. If those two gets separated, the fire dies away. This means that a sound wave is a type of pressure wave. Pressure wave will remove oxygen from air molecules. Given that oxygen is the primary fuel for the fire, this will allow you to eliminate it. Evidently, the study behind the invention went through a few ‘failed frequencies.’ By testing out different frequencies, Tran and Robertson found out that high-pitched tones were ineffective on flames. They realized that it is all about low-frequency bass sounds between 30 and 60 Hz. Therefore, deep bass tunes of hip-hop, dub, dubstep, d&b, trap or grime would also work on flames.
The device is consisted of an amplifier and a cardboard collimator to focus the sound. The duo’s final prototype only cost them approximately $600 to develop the nine kilograms device.
Seth Robertson and Viet Tran are still working on the development of the device for it to be efficient on a larger scale, for instance, to help extinguish forest fires. Even if they initially envisaged their invention to be used on small fires such as grease fires on stovetops, their mechanism has a potential to be combined with several different systems as well. Hopefully, they'll find a way to address the issue and will create a tremendous anti-fire system.
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