Brooklyn Iron Works Inc., with support from several other companies here, has designed and fabricated a large snow-hauling trailer that will be shipped out of Spokane within a few weeks for use at the South Pole.


Ben Finnoe, a project manager for Brooklyn Iron Works, says the 22-year-old Spokane company developed the trailer at an undisclosed cost through a design-build contract with Raytheon Polar Services Co., of Denver, Colo.


Raytheon Polar Services, part of the 100,000-employee, Massachusetts-based Raytheon Co., was formed specifically to meet the needs of the National Science Foundations Office of Polar Programs.


The NSF is a U.S. government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering through programs that invest more than $5.5 billion a year in research and education projects. The United States Antarctic Program is one of those that the Foundation funds and manages.


Finnoe says the 90-cubic-yard, center-dumping trailer will be used to move large quantities of snow away from the South Pole research station, which would become buried without regular snow-removal efforts. Bulldozers currently are used to push snow away from the station, but the snow-hauling trailerattached to a Caterpillar MT865 agricultural tractoris expected to streamline that task, he says.


Its definitely the most unusual project weve tackled, says Finnoe, noting that Brooklyn Iron Works specializes mostly in structural steel fabrication for commercial and industrial buildings. Brooklyn did conceptual drawings of the trailer, then had the Spokane office of Coffman Engineers Inc. do the structural analysis and design work, he says.


This project is one of a kind. Nothing like this has ever been built before, and that made it both challenging and fun to design, says Coffman project manager Dave Ruff. For example, the snow hauler was designed to operate in temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which meant special consideration had to be given to steel grade selection, hydraulic system design, and overall durability and maintainability to withstand use in the extreme South Pole environment. We did extensive research before specifying appropriate materials.


Finnoe and Ruff say the trailer had to meet special design requirements for ease of operation and maintenance to limit worker exposure in the frigid environment, and also had to be designed knowing there would be little chance for repairs in the remote location.


The trailers dumping mechanism is controlled hydraulically using the power supply on the towing tractor, they say. The trailer rides on four rubber tracks, each 30 inches wide by 10 feet long. One of the challenges was to keep the overall weight of the trailer as light as possible to minimize track pressure on the packed-snow haul road so the trailer wouldnt sink, Finnoe and Ruff say.


The completed trailer is more than 14 feet wide, 9 feet tall, and 38 feet long, not including the tongue assembly, but the unit had to be designed so it could be disassembled into pieces small enough to fit into C-130 cargo planes for transport to the South Pole, they say. Also, no field welding was allowed, so all connections had to be designed to be bolted or pinned.


A couple of other Spokane-Coeur dAlene-area companies played roles in the project, Finnoe says. Calkins Fluid Power, of Spokane, contributed considerably to the hydraulic system, he says, and Briggs Machine & Fabrication Inc., of Spokane, provided machine-shop support. Also, Forest Steel Inc., of Coeur dAlene, did some metal cutting and bending on the project. Additionally, Spokane Caterpillar dealer Western States Equipment supplied some hydraulic flex hoses, but perhaps more importantly helped with designing the trailer to match up well with the tractor that would be pulling it, Finnoe says.


Brooklyn Iron Works has about 85 employees and works on projects mostly outside of Washington, he says. It has worked on other projects with Raytheon and through that relationship was given an opportunity to submit a design-build conceptual proposal for the snow-hauling trailer, Finnoe says.


The company is working now on a couple of other Antarctica projects for Raytheon, he says.