Brian Hanson part of U of I team to design quietest snowmobile
Brian Hanson, an Orofino graduate and mechanical engineering major at the University of Idaho in Moscow, was recently part of a team that won the Clean Snowmobile Challenge.
A quiet, clean and fast snowmobile is not just any nature lovers’ fantasy. For the University of Idaho’s National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology Clean Snowmobile Team, it’s the goal.
The team recently competed in the Clean Snowmobile Challenge sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers at Michigan Technological University. The University of Idaho earned praise and honors for the Best Acceleration and Quietest Snowmobile awards.
The team’s design also won the Cold Start Award, as well as Best Internal Combustion Design Paper and Best Oral Presentation. Overall the team took second place in the internal combustion engine class. "Developing a snowmobile that achieves both Quietest and Best Acceleration at the same time is difficult to do, and is quite a technical achievement. Over the past several years, University of Idaho students have designed and fabricated a direct-injected two-stroke engine technology that is just now reaching the marketplace,” said Karen Den Braven, team adviser and director of the Center for Clean Vehicle Technology in NIATT.
“This technology doubles snowmobile fuel economy, and reduces pollution produced by 90-95+ percent. We won the competition last year using direct-injection. This year we concentrated on switching from gasoline to an ethanol blend fuel, E85, and on reducing sound,” said Den Braven.
The university’s Clean Snowmobile Challenge team's goal was to produce a low-emission and fuel-efficient snowmobile while maintaining the performance characteristics that the market demands, according to NIATT. The team has taken first at the competition in 2002, 2003 and 2007.
“I was so proud to present the second place award to such a close neighbor and friend of Yellowstone,” said Jim Evanoff, National Park Service, after he presented the second place award to the University of Idaho team.
The SAE International Clean Snowmobile Challenge is an engineering design competition for college and university students to reengineer existing snowmobiles to reduce pollution and noise emissions. The event started following a proposed ban on snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park due to the machines’ noise and emissions.
More information and pictures from this year’s SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge are online at http://www.mtukrc.org/snowmobile.htm.