JB MDL Engineer named Hot Technology winner Published March 23, 2010 By Tom Worsdale NAVAIR public affairs. JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST,N.J -- Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division engineer Joe Wolfe, from Lakehurst, N.J., was recently selected as the Navy's winner in the 2010 Hot Technology contest for developing the Fine Mist Water Nozzle. The nozzle dramatically improves the ability to extinguish fires in small contained areas. With the ban of halon for extinguishing fires on aircraft, the Navy needed to find a replacement system that was compact, lightweight, non-toxic, simple and effective for use on both aircraft and ships. The use of water, the universal fire extinguishing product, would be an ideal replacement considering its high heat of vaporization, low cost and benign properties. The main problem with water is the inability to deliver it in a form that maximizes its effectiveness. The typical firefighting technique is to flood a fire with more water than would be required to extinguish it. Because of the sophisticated and sensitive equipment, coupled with the close quarters on aircraft and ships, a novel method was needed to deliver water in an optimal, but minimal amount, in order to effectively cut the temperature and suffocate the fire. Mr. Wolfe and the Navy engineers of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst successfully developed and tested a nozzle that uses air to push water through a restricted convergent region, followed by an expanded divergent region of the nozzle. The rapid expansion of the water and gases causes the water to break up and be atomized into droplets the size of 10 to 100 micrometers, thus using a minimum amount of water to extinguish a fire. A conventional fire hose and nozzle can produce up to 150 gallons of water per minute, generating over 1,200 pounds of pressure per minute and requires two people to hold the fire hose. The Fine Mist Nozzle (adjustable liquid atomization nozzle) delivers less than two gallons of water per minute, at about 17 pounds of pressure per minute. So, it can be easily held by one person, and has the same fire extinguishing abilities as the traditional nozzle. The nozzle technology gained the interest of both the Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration for shipboard fires and aircraft cargo fires. Studies were conducted and the nozzle was commercially licensed to International Aero Corporation. With International Aero and the Navy's backing, a series of tests were funded and conducted with commercial aircraft, cargo compartments and internal fuel cell protection. Currently, the FAA is working on regulations that may allow this technology to be considered for commercial aircraft use. Although fire protection applications were the main focus for this technology, there has also been commercial interest in the nozzle for the advantages it offers over other fine water mist nozzles. These areas include: acoustic noise reduction, painting applications, fuel atomization, nano-particle separation, cleaning applications and snow making, among others. These studies have led to four issued patents and two pending patents in this area of technology. In addition to the 2010 Hot Technology Contest award winner, the nozzle technology and patent portfolio has been selected twice for the world's best technologies showcase, has been commercially licensed, has received the Federal Lab Consortium's Achievement Award, and was presented at the Fire-Rescue International 2009 in Dallas.