Ice Mammoth

The Ice Mammoth is an autonomous, modular and parametric ice resurfacing system that I designed as part of a team for my capstone project. My group was in charge of the conditioning module, which scrapes the ice and stores the shavings for dumping and sits on top of the autonomous vehicle.

The internal components of the conditioner module.

The main components of the pneumatic conveying (vacuum) system used to remove the ice shavings from the blade and store them. This includes the vacuum nozzle, vacuum tubes, snow bin, fan baffle and fan.

A close-up view of the vacuum nozzles.

A demonstration of the lift functions enabled by the hydraulic systems.

A free body diagram used to determine the forces on the conditioner lift assembly.

Shear and bending moment diagrams for one of the blade mounting brackets.

An explanation of the battery specification for the vacuum fan, using A123 Systems' modular lithium ion cells.

An explanation of the hydraulic control valve used for the lift functions.