Tetteroo P., Bockhoff M.

LaMoNoV: Lawnmower Noise and Vibration Control P. Tetteroo(a) and M. Bockhoff(b) (a)EGMF, Diamant Building, 80 Bd. A. Reyers, 1030 Brussels, Belgium (b)Dept. of Noise and Vibration Engineering, Cetim, BP 80067, 60304 Senlis Cedex, France (a)peter.tetteroo@toro.com;(b)michael.bockhoff@wanadoo.fr Abstract Since 20 years lawnmowers have to comply in Europe with more and more stringent noise limits. To investigate new solutions and to provide appropriate technologies involves an increasing effort in R&D. Therefore, a group of 10 manufacturers of lawnmowers and lawnmower components has decided to set up – together with 3 European laboratories, specialised in noise and vibration control – an ambitious industry supported research project, which started in January 2004 and ended in June 2006. The main task of this project was to develop a computer based design tool that can be used by the manufacturers in the very early stages of the development process of a possible more silent lawnmower. In addition to this task, which called for more know-how of physical acoustics of components, the goal of the project was also to gain a deeper understanding of annoyance created in the neighborhood surroundings of operating lawnmowers; i.e., of the psycho-acoustic aspects. The work has been structured in 6 work programs. Three of them are component oriented (noise + vibrations generated from blades, deck, engine, and transmission components), one is dedicated to physics of the complete lawnmower, another one deals with subjective noise parameters, and one is focused on virtual prototyping. The context of this project, the technical constraints and the chosen approaches have already been presented in a former paper [M. Bockhoff, P. Tetteroo, Inter-noise 2004], therefore this paper is focussed to the principal results obtained during the project, the industrial effects and remaining matters for future research.