Startup says sound waves can replace fire sprinklers; experts aren’t so sure

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The curtains are shopping around sure, but they’re not being blown. I’m not an expert on sound, but I’d guess the appeal here is the vibration that is shaking the air rather than just blowing it. Shaking results in moving molecules without spreading them.
It still has to put the fire out somehow. Infrasound is just bulk air movement, the speed of sound is around 340 m/s so at the frequency of 20 Hz the wavelength is 17 meters.

Moving the air back and forth would increase mixing between air and fuel, which can put the mixture outside the flammable range, effectively blowing out the fire. That same thing happening at the surface of a glowing ember will make it burn hotter.
 
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How does one catch an ember? With air movement. How does one blow out a candle? With air movement.

What's important here is that the air movement is back-and-forth in an acoustic wave (vs. a jet). That's important, because at the start of reaction, you're locally depleting the oxygen that will be replaced by diffusion then (once the fire is really going) convection. The acoustic wave is just taking that local air and jiggling it. Yes, at the start there may be more oxygen brought to the flame, but it also spreads out the heat from the reaction and eventually depletes the oxygen too (by eventually, I mean a few acoustic cycles).

What you're really doing is straining the fluid near the combustion zone to extinguish the local reaction (see my post above).
Have you even looked at their video? Look at it:


View: https://youtu.be/vLZ3yLeYIgk?si=PrZPIT3FzdaDN38w&t=257


Look at the rubbing alcohol spraying around due to net air movement. Earlier you can see it blowing flames and smoke around! Had they had coals instead of rubbing alcohol, what do you think would happen?

Fluid movement is not, generally, reversible. Just try sucking very hard instead of blowing when you're blowing out birthday cake's candles.

As I pointed out already, even at 20 Hz (the upper limit of what you might call "infrasound"), the wavelength is 17 meters, and at the scale in question, you need to think of it as sucking and blowing alternately and not as of waves, because far less than one wave fits in the picture.

What they show in the videos are flames involving combustible vapor, which are extinguished when the ratio of fuel to air drops below the minimum that can support combustion. Too much air is mixed with not enough rubbing alcohol vapor, and the resulting mixture is not combustible so it does not burn. That exact same mechanism is wholly ineffective with embers.
 
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It's an acoustic wave. It goes back and forth. The concept that you're diluting the fuel-air mixture doesn't make sense in that scenario. The combustible vapors are also moving back and forth with their oxidizer.
Look at the damn video. It is blowing rubbing alcohol out of the cooking tray, like a leafblower.

I think you are stuck in “either or” thinking, believing that if it is a sound wave there must be no net flow.

Fluid flow is not in general reversible, if you have a large displacement “back and forth” movement at the throat of the pipe, the forth comes out as a directed stream of air, carrying momentum, while back sucks from all around the opening.

Try alternately inhaling and then blowing at an object, which way does the object move? Alternately inhaling and exaling is also an “acoustic wave” with large displacement and very long wavelength.

At a distance, you have a net flow superimposed on the back and forth wave. That is literally how putt putt boat toy works.
 
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