DARPA Creates Machine Which Extinguishes Fires With Sound

SchrodingerZ writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is known for making odd scientific advances ranging from hypersonic unnamed rockets to bionic prosthetic limbs to insect-sized reconnaissance drones. But recently DARPA has made a interesting advancement in the field of fire suppression. Using two speakers arranged on either side of an open liquid fuel flame, an acoustic field was emitted and engulfed the fire. 'The sound increases air velocity, which then thins the area of the flame where combustion occurs, known as the flame boundary.' This make the flame weak and much easier to douse. Another wonderful thing about this: it's not even that loud! DARPA began its testing in 2008, stating that despite extensive research in this area, there have been no new methods for extinguishing and/or manipulating fire in almost 50 years. The agency plans to expand on this experiment and try to make it successful on a practical scale."

Comments

Who knew that naming a rocket...

[Anonymous Coward]

...would be so difficult?

Re:Who knew that naming a rocket...

[Samantha Wright]

Well, that's the thing—it's actually quite easy to make a hypersonic rocket with a name, but unnaming such a rocket would require more energy than the sun's entire output for a year, as you'd have to eradicate to eliminate all evidence, thought, and mention of the rocket's name from history. It took DARPA contractors decades to come up with a novel method of paperwork shuffling so dense that they could create unnamed rockets that would be completely impenetrable to espionage. Unfortunately, they aren't perfect; it's still possible to give individual rockets names once they're loaded into a vehicle or turret for firing, as at that point they enter the realm of conscious human perception. Despite the potential dire consequences for captured vehicles and compromised air bases, all contractors were paid upfront for the usual budget overruns.

Re:Who knew that naming a rocket...

[million_monkeys]

Coming up with a name is easy. The hard part is making that name into an acronym for something. That's a new rule: all names have to be an acronym as well. For example, the unnamed rocket linked to in the summary is called Falcon and it stands for Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States. I'm sure they spent a lot of time trying to get that right.

Re:Who knew that naming a rocket...

[Samantha Wright]

Such a shame, too, when Fiery And Large Crewless Orbital Nuisance is available. It's like they're not even trying to do their jobs!

Rockets?

[GodGell]

Hypersonic unnamed rockets? Wait until Anonymous hears about that...

Re:My Fire Extinguisher goes to...

[azalin]

Wait for it....

11

Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!

Well, this time the .sig and the post align perfectly.