Outwardly, this device does not even resemble a fire extinguisher, if only because a completely different principle of combating fire is used here. The authors of the original idea – students of the University of George Mason Set Robertson and Viet Trans proposed using a low -frequency sound stream instead of traditional chemical fire fillers.
Success came after numerous experiments with high frequencies, for which young researchers used ordinary sound speakers. The frequencies in the range from 30 to 60 hertz turned out to be optimal.
As it turned out, a powerful sound wave “excitingly” acts on the air, as a result of which there is a separation of oxygen from the focus of the fire due to an increase in the speed of air in the acoustic field. With increasing speed, the extreme layer of flame is made thinner and it becomes easier to extinguish.
It is worth noting that the idea of extinguishing a fire with the help of sound waves George and Seth borrowed from the agency promising military developments Darpa, somewhat improved it in the form of a compact apparatus. After bringing the parameters to the relevant standards, they hope to install it on special drones and use it to localize forest fires.