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

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.