When George Mozurkewich came in town in the late '90s, I learned that there were more than three heat transfer mechanisms. The ones everybody know are: Conduction, Convection and Radiation. A fourth one presented by George was thermoacoustics whereby given the right frequency, sound waves can be modulated to move heat from one place to another. I wonder why these Thermoacoustic oscillations are not even considered as a plausible explanation for the reason why fires can be extinguished with sound waves. One could try to check this by making a $25 tabletop thermoacoustic engine (you may want to check this document to do that) and check it out against different types of flames and frequencies. And while space might be a good place to think about using this technology, I am sure that other areas such as fire prevention and containment would be much more well served by investigating it. A device using this technique could be called the Muad'Dib Fire Extinguisher.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thermoacoustic Flame Extinguisher ?
When George Mozurkewich came in town in the late '90s, I learned that there were more than three heat transfer mechanisms. The ones everybody know are: Conduction, Convection and Radiation. A fourth one presented by George was thermoacoustics whereby given the right frequency, sound waves can be modulated to move heat from one place to another. I wonder why these Thermoacoustic oscillations are not even considered as a plausible explanation for the reason why fires can be extinguished with sound waves. One could try to check this by making a $25 tabletop thermoacoustic engine (you may want to check this document to do that) and check it out against different types of flames and frequencies. And while space might be a good place to think about using this technology, I am sure that other areas such as fire prevention and containment would be much more well served by investigating it. A device using this technique could be called the Muad'Dib Fire Extinguisher.
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