SBIR Phase I: Controlled Application of Shock Waves to Extinguish Wildfires

SBIR一期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是将新型冲击波技术应用于野火，可以直接挽救生命，保护财产和基础设施，显着减少细颗粒物空气污染，并防止脆弱的生态系统遭受永久性破坏，这些生态系统无法从美国西部日益常见的大型和强烈的野火中完全恢复。目前应对大型野火的技术通常不能实现直接灭火，而是旨在逐步引导和遏制火灾——在常规特大火灾（超过10万英亩）的时代，空投等方法尽管花费巨大，但很少有效。随着人口进一步扩展到城市-荒地的交界面，环境变化造成了长期的干旱和森林的削弱，燃料负荷积累的时间远远超过了自然情况下的时间，火灾季节现在接近常年水平。因此，联邦政府每年用于紧急灭火的支出现在经常达到20亿至30亿美元，而20世纪末的平均支出不到10亿美元。一个糟糕的火灾季节对整体经济的影响可能会使更广泛的经济损失一个数量级的国内生产总值。该项目采用了一种经济高效、快速反应的冲击波技术来扑灭大型火场。该项目涉及技术创新，将受控的定向冲击波应用于由有机材料推动的不受控制的野火规模火焰，目标是实现快速扑灭。湍流火焰和碎片对众多变量的响应特性对现场部署很重要，将通过物理原型设备进行测试-该设备具有安全，重复传递可调谐冲击波的新机制。生成的独特数据反过来又可以优化和改进便携式产品，最终可以进入消防机构的工业应用。项目工作包括详细的设计、制造和实验测试，在适当的规模使用高速摄像和基于密度的可视化。这将与高频压力和温度传感相结合，以证明该技术的有效性，并进一步提高对冲击波相互作用时潜在流体和火灾动力学的理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this SBIR Phase I project is the potential to apply novel shock wave technology to wildfires in a way that can directly save lives, protect property and infrastructure, significantly reduce fine particulate air pollution, and prevent the permanent devastation of fragile ecosystems that can no longer fully recover from the large and intense wildfires that are increasingly commonplace in the American West. Current technologies for responding to large wildfires do not typically achieve direct extinguishment and are rather aimed at the gradual guidance and containment of fires - in the era of regular megafires (greater than 100,000 acres), methods such as aerial drops are rarely effective despite their enormous expense. As populations have further expanded into the urban-wildland interface, environmental change has produced extended droughts and weakened forests, and fuel loads have accumulated for far longer than would be natural, fire seasons now approach perennial levels. As a result, Federal annual spending on emergency suppression now regularly reaches $2B to $3B, up from an average of less than $1B at the end of the 20th century, and the holistic economic impact of a bad fire season may cost the broader economy an order of magnitude more in lost Gross Domestic Product. The proposed project implements a cost-effective, rapid-response shock wave technology to extinguish large fire fronts. This project involves technical innovation in the novel application of controlled, directed shock waves to uncontrolled wildfire-scale flames fueled by organic material, with the goal of achieving rapid extinguishment. Characterization of turbulent flame and debris field response to a multitude of variables which are important for field deployment will result from testing with a physical prototype device – this device features novel mechanisms for the safe, repeated delivery of tunable shock waves. The unique data generated will in turn enable the optimization and refinement of a portable product that can eventually proceed to industrial application with firefighting agencies. The project work comprises detailed design, fabrication, and experimental testing of the shock-generating device at appropriate scale using high speed videography with density-based visualization. This will be combined with high-frequency pressure and temperature sensing, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique and further improve understanding of the underlying fluid and fire dynamics as the shock wave interactions occur.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.