Cleaner, Fuel-Efficient Snowmobile is Goal for UMaine Engineers
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
Note: Student engineers will be available from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, March 12 to discuss the competition and show their work on the snowmobile in Crosby Lab on the UMaine campus.
ORONO, Maine — A team of University of Maine mechanical engineering students is finishing last minute adjustments to an Arctic Cat snowmobile that they will take next week to a national competition in Michigan. It’s not speed that they’re after, although fast is good. Their goal is a cleaner, quieter, more fuel efficient machine that will take top honors in the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Clean Snowmobile Challenge.
The competition has attracted 15 teams from across North America and will take place at Michigan Technological University’s Keweenaw Research Center in Houghton, March 15-20. The UMaine team will leave Sunday morning for the estimated 23-hour drive to Houghton.
Michael “Mick” Peterson, associate professor of mechanical engineering, advises the 12-member UMaine team that has been working on the project since last fall. The target of students’ attention is a 2003 Arctic 660 4-stroke snowmobile purchased by the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
“The focus of this competition is on reducing noise and emissions and creating a reliable machine,” says Peterson. “The team has also created computer models to maximize the chance of good performance. These models predict the noise level of the snowmobile based on measurements made in the laboratory. It’s also the beginning of a large scale effort to determine optimal clutching of the continuously variable transmission for improved fuel economy.”
Members of the UMaine team include: Adam Caldwell, Kittery; Michael Wallace , Hodgdon; Christian Bushnell, Old Town; Daniel Bennis , Pownal; Jason Byrd, Penobscot; Joshua Higgins, Kittery; Aaron Dejardins, St. Agatha; Shawn Rossignol, Frenchville; Steve Schaub, Belfast; Matt Allard, Kingfield; William Hotchkiss, Harborside; Mike DeMaio, Farmington, Connecticut.
“We’ve been building and designing based on the rules (for the competition),” says Hotchkiss. “Fuel efficiency, emissions and noise are the most important things. A lot of the teams have been working on their engines to increase speed, but that’s worth only a small number of points.”
The team’s modeling efforts are useful preparation for working in automotive and recreational vehicle industries, adds Allard. “Modeling allows us to change things and see the effects before we actually do the work on the engine. It’s the direction that industry is going in the future.”
During the competition, students will be putting their snowmobile through a 100-mile endurance run for which fuel use will be the deciding factor. Other parts of the competition include a sound test, public display and presentation before a panel of judges.
Teams registered include Clarkson University, Colorado State University, Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Idaho State University, Kettering University, McGill University, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State University-Mankato, Montana Tech, SUNY-Buffalo, the University of Alberta, the University of Idaho, the University of Maine, the University of Waterloo, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Local sponsors of the UMaine team include Applied ThermalSystems of Sanford, Z. F. Lemforder of Brewer, Cat Trax of Lagrange and Bangor Neon.