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

Acoustic fire suppression goes commercial.

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[JBanister]

Does anyone know if this could be combined with water mist or vapor in order to add phase change cooling? I would think that would be an effective compromise by providing some of the benefits of sprinklers while reducing the associated water damage.

And if I'm understanding the principal at work here, wouldn't the infrasound help to vaporize and suspend the water to be even more effective at cooling? Or would the opposite happen with the sound causing the water to condense? Would the change in density reduce the effectiveness of the sound waves? I seem to have a lot of questions. I'd love to know the answers.

I was thinking along similar lines. High pressure (~1500 psi, usually pressurized by a nitrogen bottle) mist sprinkler systems have been shown to knock down a fire just as well as conventional sprinkler systems while using considerably less water and doing less water damage. But, like a regular sprinkler system they're not directional. What if a high pressure mist system put finely divided droplets of water into the air, and infrasound pushed them towards the heat source, where the 1200:1 volumetric expansion when water turns to steam displaced the oxygen at the heat source? One might be able to put fires out using even less water. It's worth noting that a lot of small diameter stainless tubing has a high pressure rating, which takes a big part of the challenge out of plumbing high pressure low volume water.