1. Acknowledgement
Design of Low Cost and Lightweight Electric
Snowmobile
Students: Zhen Wei Yong, Bhavesh Ghandi,
Fatin Baharuddin, Grant Wible, Guiming Chen, Yu-Ren Chen
Mentors: Dr. Jing Zhang, Mr. Ying Zhang, Mr. Michael Golub
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Abstract
Methods
In recent years, collaborative effort by leaders across the world
are funding and conducting research in sensitive areas particularly
in the Polar Regions. Global climate change brings the urge to
produce higher efficiency power generation engines or even
engines which do not require fossil fuel as energy sources. These
ideas quickly drive engineers to design electric or hybrid vehicles
that is more efficient than before, capable to perform what normal
gasoline engines do and most importantly does not have any
emissions that would pollute the environment. To this day, there
are many consumer based hybrid cars being introduced and
produced in the market. However, the automotive industry is not
the only one that needs to be geared towards alternative energy.
Recreational vehicle industry accounts for its fair share of
emissions. Hence, it drives our team to design an affordable
electric snowmobile due to fragile environment on the Greenland
Ice Cap.
Introduc6on
References
We would like to acknowledge Multi-disciplinary Research Institute
(MURI) for sponsoring this research.
In this research, our major attribute is to design an ultra-low cost
and lightweight electric snowmobile. With the goal in mind, our
team has managed to build the car with a Manufacturer’s
Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of less than $8000 and a
snowmobile weigh less than 441lb (200kg). In order to achieve
this, we took a Phantom Snowmobile PD250LT (Fig 1) and did
various modifications on it. Amongst the changes we have made,
the major changes are replacing the engine to a FMC Motor - DC-
series motor and it is connected directly to the sprocket shaft
using a Goodyear Synchronous Belt. The belt itself is very quiet
and only produce less than 59db. The snowmobile is powered by
24 cells Lithium Ion batteries (LiFePO4) arranged in one series
string which can produce a maximum voltage of 88.8VDC.
Although with a relatively small battery pack, with the design
modification we proposed, the snowmobile theoretically is able to
travel an average of 8 miles depending on the snow condition.
Test run will be scheduled to further investigate and improve the
snowmobile.
Figure 1: Phantom Snowmobile PD250LT
Since it is highly sensitive to chemical and human’s byproduct, the
researchers that are located in the Summit Station (in Greenland)
require special mode of transportation to and from their research
sites. Our goal in designing this snowmobile does not only restrict
to affordable pricing, we want it to be able to perform what the
other bigger snowmobiles can perform even if our snowmobile is
much smaller and lighter.
Our initial decision was made to obtain the lightest sled available
and we have succeeded by obtaining the Phantom snowmobile.
The frame is mainly made with steel as shown in Figure 2. The
material weighed 60lb (27.2kg) for this frame. Designing a similar
frame with Aluminum would save approximately half the weight.
This would an area of study for future research.
Figure 2: Phantom Steel Frame Structure
The next important component is the power source which is the
battery pack. We have decided to use Lithium Ion (LiFePO4)
batteries for our snowmobile. There are various advantages of
Lithium Ion batteries. The benefits are: (1) the weight-to-
performance ratio and (2) its lifetime is three time of other Li-ion
batteries. The battery is assembled together from 24 battery cells
as shown in Figure 3. A Battery Management System (BMS) is
also designed and built to monitor the battery condition.
The conversion of the snowmobile was completed by removing the
gasoline engine, the fuel tank, the muffler, and other associated
parts. Furthermore, removal of the chain case and jack shaft
means that the snowmobile will require only two fluids: brake fluid
and bearing grease. This makes a cleaner vehicle. It also reduces
weight, and allows a simpler redesign. After a comparisons of
different types of belt, our team have decided on using the
Goodyear NRC Synchronous Belt because it has the highest
efficiency yet it remains at 59db noise as compared to the Gates
Poly Chain at 73db.
Table 1: Belt Selection Table
1. 2015 Clean Snowmobile Zero Emissions (ZE) Challenge Rules.
Accessed online at 11 Feb 2015
2. Wies, R. W., A. N. Agrawal, and R. A. Johnson, Hybrid Electric
Power Systems: Modeling, Optimization, and Control, VDM
Verlag, 2007.
3. Goodyear MaximizerPro software. Accessed online at 11 Feb
2015
4. Golub, M., et al., "Design of an affordable electric snowmobile,"
CSC Tech Paper (Fairbanks) 2013. Accessed online at 11 Feb
2015
Figure 4: Goodyear Eagle NRG Synchronous System
Figure 3: Twenty-four Cell Lithium Ion Battery Pack
Figure 5: Modification of the Snowmobile With Team Members