IT’S A SOUND more reminiscent of alien spaceships in films and dubstep tracks than of fire fighters battling a blaze, but two engineering students in the United States have developed a method of using low-frequency sound waves to put out fires.

And it looks to be successful in initial testing.

The device could revolutionise fire fighting, which traditionally involves water or foam, both of which come in finite amounts and will often leave a mess in the affected area.

Instead, this new form of extinguisher simply emits low-frequency sounds in the direction of the fire.

The Washington Post reports that the device Seth Robertson (23) and Viet Tran (28) from George Mason University have constructed it using a power source, amplifier, sound generator, and focusing tube, and has currently cost around $600 to develop.

It has only been tested on rubbing alcohol, but the pair have filed a patent that allows them to continue testing. Local fire stations have expressed interest in the device, urging the pair to test it on structural fires.

The students hope that it could, in future, be attached to drones, allowing fires in hard-to-reach places to be fought effectively, and with less risk to the lives of fire-fighters.

The idea itself isn’t new, and the physics behind it are well established. Dapra, responsible for developing new technology for the US Department of Defence, demonstrated a similar device in 2011. Wired has this explanation as to how it works:

The sound increases air velocity, which then thins the area of the flame where combustion occurs, known as the flame boundary. Once the boundary area is thinned, the flame is easier to extinguish. At the same time, the acoustics are disturbing the pool of fuel and creating higher fuel vaporisation — this widens the flame, thinning it out so it is less concentrated and cool enough to extinguish.

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