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The challenge before Johns Hopkins University engineering students: Take a leaf blower, but make it quiet. Make it work as powerfully as ever, but do not allow it to emit the ear-piercing caterwaul that has gotten leaf blowers banned in some communities and cursed in many others.
Shocking their sponsors, their advisers, and even themselves a little, the students did it.
Their improved leaf blower drops the overall noise level by nearly 40% while almost entirely erasing the most obnoxious frequencies. The design is patent-pending and Stanley Black & Decker expects to be selling them in two years.
Their design cuts the most shrill and annoying frequencies by about 12 decibels, which all but removes them, making them 94% quieter. The team reduced the overall leaf blower noise by about two decibels, making the machine sound 37% quieter.
So it's a quieter machine, and what people can hear will sound more pleasant.
hub.jhu.edu
Shocking their sponsors, their advisers, and even themselves a little, the students did it.
Their improved leaf blower drops the overall noise level by nearly 40% while almost entirely erasing the most obnoxious frequencies. The design is patent-pending and Stanley Black & Decker expects to be selling them in two years.
Their design cuts the most shrill and annoying frequencies by about 12 decibels, which all but removes them, making them 94% quieter. The team reduced the overall leaf blower noise by about two decibels, making the machine sound 37% quieter.
So it's a quieter machine, and what people can hear will sound more pleasant.
Hearing is be-leafing: Students invent quieter leaf blower
Patent-pending design by Hopkins undergrads could be available in stores within two years
hub.jhu.edu
