Industrial · The edge of physics
Pressurized Gas Leak Detection by Jet Vibration
People wish WiFi could hear a small gas leak hissing from a flange.
We publish what we will not claim — that is how you can trust the rest.
Why the physics says no
The hiss of a small leak is almost entirely ultrasonic — far above what WiFi sensing can feel — and the escaping plume itself barely touches radio waves at all. Ultrasonic survey tools do this job; WiFi honestly cannot.
In the physics: A high-pressure leak does two physical things in-band: the escaping jet drives broadband mechanical vibration of the pipe/flange (turbulence-induced, with substantial energy below 40Hz reaching the microphone-free micro-Doppler channel), and the turbulent plume creates a fluctuating refractive-index volume that scintillates any RF path crossing it (fast, non-periodic amplitude jitter distinct from human/machine Doppler). Steam plumes add a strong eps_r contrast from water vapor condensation.
Reviewer's verdict: Both claimed observables fail: turbulent-plume RF refractive-index scintillation is negligible at cm wavelengths (air density fluctuations give sub-0.1 degree phase over indoor paths, unlike optical/IR), and small-leak (0.5-3mm orifice) jet energy is predominantly ultrasonic, not in the 0.1-40Hz structural band. Below noise floor.