Ultrasonic Device

[Travis Smith]

Gang,

I'm doing research into using sound to vaporize ice and snow.  I've done some preliminary research and there are already plenty of patents out there on the subject...at this point I just think it would be cool to own something that could do the job, however impractical.

If you're interested, use this thread to throw out ideas.  Thanks!

Travis

[David Knaack]

I am curious why one would use sound to carry the necessary energy rather than some other medium?

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[tavshed]

He's looking for a reason to give the neighbors for his loud music. :-)

- Mike

[Travis Smith]

This is more of a 'because I can' sort of invention. I remember as a
kid being fascinated by the ultrasonic humidifier we had in our house.
There was no (perceived) sound beyond a slight hum, and every day a
gallon sized tank would empty from it as a fine, cold mist.

If I could remove the snow from my driveway in similar fashion, that
would be pretty cool. I was thinking of perhaps making a mat that
would have piezo electric ultrasonic devices sporadically placed.
You could turn on the mat once it starts snowing to keep the drive (or
other surface) clear. Ideally the mat would be durable enough to be
stepped/driven on, so you wouldn't have to move it later.

Other ideas: A gun, a staff (of power!), several stakes. The idea
with the latter two would be to break up the snow mass to encourage
melting overall by increasing surface area.

Travis

[Eric J. Kaplan]

I think you will quickly find that the amount of energy required to keep your driveway clear will be so costly as to deter the practicality of this as a solution.

Sent from Eric's iPhone

[Ben Hutcheson]

That's one of the (many) cruel truths of thermodynamics.  It doesn't matter how you apply the energy, it takes the same amount of energy to melt or vaporize something.  The only place you can really gain is in efficiency, which I suspect in this case mainly takes the form of how much time you spend heating up things other than snow.  And, sadly, I don't think ultrasonic is going to be a huge efficiency boost.  In fact, those humidifiers and air fresheners cheat horribly by not actually melting, boiling, or vaporizing anything at all.  They just splash the liquids around really hard when they hit the rapidly-moving diaphragm, and create a very fine mist of droplets

Water is also surprisingly hard to melt.  Both its specific heat capacity (energy required to raise its temperature) and its enthalpy of fusion (energy to change phase to liquid) are quite high compared to other common substances.  Assuming I'm not horribly misapplying the calculations here (which is entirely possible), a mere 100 kg of ice would take 5 hours to melt using the full energy from a standard household 15-amp electrical circuit, and that's if you don't waste any of it making noise, light, magnetic fields, or heating anything other than the snow.

All of this is just a really depressing and detailed way of saying "there's a reason we don't all use radiant heating systems to keep our driveways clear."  Although I have read about such systems being installed by the very wealthy, using closed loop hot water circulation.  And there's a stripe all the way along Iowa State's campus where an underground steam conduit used for heating some of the older buildings also prevents snow accumulation.  But that thing is directly fed by a coal-burning cogeneration plant, capable of producing 900,000 lbs of steam per hour, so it's not subject to quite the same limitations as most households.

Having said all that, I am very interested to see what you can come up with.

[Travis Smith]

Good explanations!

 

I'll let you know how it goes.  Sublimation, whatever the cost!

Travis

[Travis Smith]

Oh, one final point:  Other than just being interested in ultrasonic sound and resonating frequencies, I currently live in an area that gets over 10 ft (and sometimes 20) in a year.  However, the temperatures are on average higher than in Omaha, and there are often high winds.  The sun shines enough that the snow melts fairly fast even though its piling down, and with a minimum of slush in the streets.

 

In layman's terms (since I'm a layman):

 

Sun energy+high wind+fracturing and increasing surface area from ultrasonic resonance of ice= maybe faster melting.

 

Nature will be doing most of the work, if it works.  Its a local solution, to be sure.

 

http://www.ehow.com/info_8149298_causes-ice-melt-faster.html

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesublimation.html

 

Travis