Lawnmowers placed on the European market today have to comply with the rather severe noise limits defined in the "The noise emission in the environment by equipment for use outdoors" Directive 2000/14/EC. In order to assess the technical and economical feasibility of further reductions of these limits, the principal European manufacturers have decided to set up - together with several European laboratories which specialise in acoustics and vibration control - an ambitious research project. The main task of this project is to develop a computer based design tool which can be used by the manufacturers in very early stages of the development of more silent lawnmowers. In addition to this task, which calls for more know-how of physical acoustics of components, the goal of the project is also to gain a deeper understanding of annoyance created in the neighbourhood surroundings of operating lawnmowers; i.e. of the psycho-acoustic aspects.
The work is structured in 6 work programs. Three of them are component oriented (noise + vibrations generated from blades, engines, 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.