Engineering Students Extinguish Blaze with Sound Mexico Ledger
go to original March 31, 2015

Many fires have been put out by a good dousing, but two students recently extinguished a blaze by using something far less common – sound waves. (gdgtsbuzz)

It happens so quickly you almost don't believe it: Seth Robertson and Viet Tran ignite a fire, snap on their low-rumbling bass frequency generator and extinguish the flames in seconds. And even after you've seen it over and over, it's still unbelievable.

But the two senior engineering majors at George Mason University appear to have invented and built a way to use sound waves to put out fires. It started as an idea for a senior research project, and after a year of trial and error and spending about $600 of their own money, they have built a somewhat portable sound generator, amplifier, power source and focusing tube that would seem to have great potential in attacking fires in a variety of situations.

Robertson, 23, and Tran, 28, applied for a provisional patent at the end of November, which gives them a year to do further testing on other flammable chemicals — so far they have put out only fires started with rubbing alcohol — and to continue to refine their device. Although they originally conceived of the device as a way to put out kitchen fires and, perhaps, fires in spacecraft, a local fire department already has asked them to test their bass waves on a structure fire; they think the concept could replace the toxic and messy chemicals involved in fire extinguishers.

Read the rest at Mexico Ledger

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