Snowmobiles have been found to exert a negative impact on the environment because of their emissions. Because of this, snowmobiles, and other recreational vehicles, have come under scrutiny by the federal government, and their use has been restricted in national parks. There has been almost no change in emissions technology for recreational vehicles since they were first introduced, said Greg Davis, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at Kettering, and faculty adviser for the Clean Snowmobile Challenge Team. In fact, they are probably worse on emissions now because they have become more powerful, he added. Ethanol is a cleaner burning fuel than gasoline, making it the focus of emissions testing.
Ethanol is a biomass energy, meaning it is made from organic material, such as corn.
The Clean Snowmobile competition requires teams to use a fuel blend with a maximum of up to 10 percent ethanol. For their first attempt at the Clean Snowmobile Challenge, the Kettering team will use the full 10 percent ethanol blend fuel allowed in their snowmobile, but plan to demonstrate a higher blend fuel for emissions testing purposes. Davis explained that the Kettering SAE Motorsports group had participated in another competition where they ran a full-sized pick up truck on 85 percent ethanol blend fuel. We want to take what we learned from that and apply it to the snowmobile challenge, he said. Because a car engine is not designed to fit in a snowmobile, the mechanical hook-ups are challenging, said Ray Rust, lab technician in Mechanical Engineering.