I tested out a method to wrangle fire recently, in my long-term mission to devise a way to encourage explosions to form more recognizable shapes. As an aside, people get all uncomfortable once you mention gasoline explosions. Usually, the volume of fuel I'm using is in the milliliters range, and the total volume of fuel on site is less than one gallon, but I guess without more explanation, people imagine the kind of stuff you see in action movies. Which would be AWESOME, don't get me wrong.
Anyways, the idea here was to see what I could get into acrylic tubes.
And initially...soot. Soot is what I get. This is the first attempt, and the soot preceded the flame, immediately blackening the inside of the tube.
Even that might work, if I was getting what I see in my head, a tightly packed explosion. But there's no sense of containment or channeling. I think the pressure is too low. And of course, any increase in pressure leads to a pretty dramatic increase in danger.
And even with minimal pressure, the acrylic tubes don't stand up too well. I drilled this hole so I could insert a match near the middle of the tube, but you can see how the heat discolors and cracks the tube.
Never mind this much thinner acrylic, which withstood only two applications of burning gasoline.
So, back to the drawing board.