Momentum - September 2021 - 27

STUDENT GENERATION
RIT team photo from the 2020 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge.
virtually. One way we accomplished this was through a laser
3D scan of the snowmobile engine bay. After removing the
previous exhaust system from the sled, we used a 3D scanner,
which gave us a surface mesh of our snowmobile. Everyone
then had access to the physical dimensions of the sled with
high precision. This allowed us to design the exhaust system
remotely to accurately fit around the steering column and
route to the muffler.
" Knowing that the physical parameters of the exhaust were
met, we took this model and placed it into GT-Suite to perform
acoustical analysis. Iterations of the system were performed to
balance the geometric shape with the acoustical performance.
Additionally, this gave us the opportunity to try new acoustical
damping methods like Helmholtz resonators. Our team plans to
continue this development and implement them into our sled
for the 2022 competition, given the physical results reflect the
promising data from the simulations. "
RIT placed third in the SI Class, " jumping off the deep end
and giving it a grade-A effort, despite not being able to grasp
the full complexity, " Boeckmann told MOMENTUM. " They will
continue to improve and develop. North Dakota State's team
should be recognized for similar reasons as RIT, but in the
diesel category. "
There were many changes made to the RIT team's
organization leading into the 2021 competition. " In previous
years, team members were divided into subgroups based on
disciplines such as chassis, mechanical, electrical, and
manufacturing, " RIT team manager Sandor Gamache told
MOMENTUM. " This organization did not perform well, as many
of the pursued projects through the year were multidisciplinary,
making for inefficient execution of tasks. For the
2021 build season, the team switched to project-based
subgroups that specifically focused on a single task. This
MOMENTUM
proved to be a much more efficient organization and allowed
more projects to be completed on time.
" When the competition was announced to be taking place
virtually, several team members got right to work getting a
foundational understanding of GT Power, our simulation and
analysis software of choice. It was this early initiative to learn
the software that enabled the later, more complex analysis to
be completed more smoothly, " Gamache explained.
" The team purchased a new, stock snowmobile in the fall of
2020 and used this as the base for the simulation and analysis
submitted to the competition. Using this snowmobile team
members created one-to-one scale models of the muffler,
track, and other crucial components in GT Power to run
simulations with the highest degree of accuracy possible. " n
Editor's note: SAE International recently announced that it
and the SAE Milwaukee Section will host the 2022 Clean
Snowmobile Challenge. The event will be held March 1-3 at
World Championship Derby Complex in Eagle River, Wisc.
Registration will take place at 10:00 a.m. ET on Thursday,
September 16, 2021, on sae.org at sae.org/attend/studentevents.
The
Keweenaw Research Center along with Michigan
Technological University had hosted the event since 2000, led
by Jay Meldrum. These institutions had decided that 2020
would be their last year hosting.
Over the past 21 years, this competition has served multiple
participants and teams with the opportunity to enhance their
engineering design and project management skills by applying
learned classroom theories in a challenging competition. Many
technologies showcased at CSC over the years have ended up
on modern-day snowmobiles.
September 2021 27
RIT
https://www.sae.org/attend/student-events http://www.sae.org https://www.sae.org/attend/student-events
Momentum - September 2021

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