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

SBIR 第一阶段：受控应用冲击波扑灭野火

• 批准号: 2051780
• 负责人: William Sutton
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: Rebel Research LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-05-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2051780&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Controlled; Application; Shock

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.

该 SBIR 第一阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是有可能将新型冲击波技术应用于野火，从而直接拯救生命，保护财产和基础设施，显着减少细颗粒空气污染，并防止对森林造成永久性破坏。脆弱的生态系统无法从美国西部日益普遍的大规模野火中完全恢复，目前应对大型野火的技术通常不是直接扑灭，而是旨在逐步引导和遏制。火灾 - 在经常发生特大火灾（超过 100,000 英亩）的时代，空投等方法尽管费用巨大，但很少有效。随着人口进一步扩展到城市与荒地交界处，环境变化导致了长期干旱和森林衰弱。 ，并且燃料装载量的积累时间远远长于自然情况，火灾季节现已接近常年水平，因此，联邦每年用于紧急扑救的支出现在定期达到 20 亿美元至 30 亿美元，高于 2008 年的平均不到 10 亿美元。到 20 世纪末，严重火灾季节的整体经济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。拟议的项目采用了一种具有成本效益的快速响应冲击波技术来扑灭火灾。该项目涉及对有机材料引发的不受控制的野火规模火焰进行新型应用的技术创新，目的是实现湍流火焰的快速扑灭和表征。碎片现场对现场部署非常重要的多种变量的响应将通过物理原型设备进行测试得出——该设备具有安全、重复传输可调谐冲击波的新颖机制，生成的独特数据反过来将实现优化。该项目工作包括使用高速摄像和基于密度的可视化，对适当规模的冲击发生装置进行详细设计、制造和实验测试。与高频压力和温度相结合传感，以证明该技术的有效性，并进一步提高对冲击波相互作用发生时的潜在流体和火灾动力学的理解。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。