“A fire whirl is usually turbulent, but this blue whirl is very quiet and stable without visible or audible signs of turbulence,” said Huahua Xiao, coauthor. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. “A fire tornado has long been seen as this incredibly scary, destructive thing,” said fire protection engineer and coauthor Michael Gollner. Fluid dynamics and fire science haven’t yet nailed down exactly what makes a plume of smoke rise in a spiral, but it’s easy to see that it often does. We strongly encourage you to read our updated PRIVACY POLICY and COOKIE POLICY. “Blue whirls evolve from traditional yellow fire whirls. And it draws up the oil as it burns. “But, like electricity, can you harness it for good? But now, a team of researchers in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD) say their discovery of a type of fire tornado they call a 'blue … A blue fire tornado sounds like it could be an alarming natural disaster, but this phenomenon could actually offer a way to burn fuel with reduced carbon emissions, a new study finds. “A fire whirl is usually turbulent, but this blue whirl is very quiet and stable without visible or audible signs of turbulence,” said Huahua Xiao, coauthor. The yellow color is due to radiating soot particles, which form when there is not enough oxygen to burn the fuel completely,” said professor of engineering Elaine Oran, coauthor. In much the same way as rocket stoves are physically arranged to control the currents of air through a combustive center, scientists figured out how to induce a fire whirl by just putting two quartz half-cylinders above their fire. The researchers are conscious of the need to see whether we can make the blue whirls stay lit over the open ocean, and they hope that publishing their technique can make fire more accessible to research. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. A fire tornado, also known as fire whirl, fire twister, or firenado is a whirlwind which is made up of ash or flame. A typical fire tornado only lasts a few minutes. A cleaner burn is really important, for reasons that go beyond air quality in the lab. This content is imported from Twitter. Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our, ET Deals: Save up to $400 on Dell G5 Gaming Desktops, ET Deals: Save over 10% on Dell Alienware Aurora R11 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 Gaming Laptops, ET Black Friday Deals: Save on 4K TVs, Laptops, Robot Vacuums and more, Get an Extra 20 Percent off these Amazing Black Friday Deals, How to Be a Task Manager Wizard, According to the Guy Who Wrote It, Researchers develop a new kind of blue ‘fire tornado’. This makes my inner pyromaniac intensely happy. Think about that: a stable, controlled vortex of flame that can burn crude oil completely, and exploits surface tension and viscosity to feed itself in lieu of a physical wick. paper, because these people articulate some fascinating things about how fire behaves. Gav and Dan combine wind with fire to create a swirling vortex of flames. They’ve named it a blue whirl. When building a campfire, if you’ve laid it well, you’ll often notice that the smoke and sparks make a lazy spiral as they rise. What they produced was a pure, spiraling blue flame, smokeless and silent. Credit: Xiao, Gollner and Oran, 2016. PCMag Digital GroupExtremeTech is among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. “A fire whirl is usually turbulent, but this blue whirl is very quiet and stable without visible or audible signs of turbulence,” said Huahua Xiao, coauthor. The power to manipulate blue flames. Fire tornadoes begin with a swirl of smoke or wind. Yellow spiral vortex evolving into a blue whirl. They usually occur when the turbulent wind conditions combine with the increasing heat from the fire to create a rotating eddy of air. The fact that it’s over water might even make it worse, because the waves move around all the toxic crap left when the oil burns. “Blue in the whirl indicates there is enough oxygen for complete combustion, which means less or no soot, and is therefore a cleaner burn.”. A fire tornado, or fire whirl, can occur during urban and wildland fires, … This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Now, a group of researchers from the University of Maryland are bending the firenado to their own, more benevolent uses. If we can understand it, then maybe we can control and use it.”. They happen when a wildfire is so advanced that it makes its own wind. 1 Also Called 2 Capabilities 3 Applications 4 Associations 5 Limitations 6 Known Users 6.1 Cartoons 6.2 Comics 6.3 Movies 6.4 Literature 6.5 Live Television 6.6 Anime/Manga 6.7 Video Games 7 Gallery 7.1 Anime/Manga 7.2 Cartoons/Comics 7.3 Literature 7.4 Live Television/Movies 7.5 Video Games Azur-Pyrokinesis Blue … That phenomenon, writ large, is what makes fire whirls: the spiraling updraft above an out-of-control fire can fling burning debris through the air, fell trees, and even burn people alive. During oil spills like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, in-place burning is one tactic cleanup crews use to reduce the volume of the spill. © 1996-2020 Ziff Davis, LLC. The blue whirl might be exactly the thing for oil spills: it burns hot, smokeless, and steady, even when it’s burning crude oil. A tornado of fire blazed before settling into a spinning blue flame several centimeters tall. After the vortex had exhausted its fuel, the researchers leaned down with a butane torch, but found that there was nothing left to burn. These results represent a new way to control how fire does what it does, both by changing the vortex mode of the flame and by altering the behavior of the fuel. When the researchers tested out their technique over a scaled-down oil spill, the blue whirl made the whole oil slick start to rotate and draw inward toward the flame, sometimes removing any visible oil. Variation of Fire Manipulation. But oil fires are so bad they’re almost unreal, because of the huge plumes of impenetrable, toxic black smoke, and in situ burning is no exception. You really should go read the original (and freely available!) Fire whirls are devastating, incompletely understood pyrodynamic events.