Lawn Mower Design

Citation

Griswold, Lee Martin (1947) Lawn Mower Design. Master's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/48jb-tg19. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:04242025-033816237

Abstract

If you were to explore the lawn mower market today, you would find that lawn mowers are essentially the same now as when your grandfather or even great-grandfather used them. Hundreds of patents have been issued on ideas which supposedly were to improve lawn mowers. However, the basic lawn mower design as we have known it for years still stands as practically the only type of lawn mower sold today. The survival of this design through so many generations and the subsequent failure of so many other suggested designs certainly tends to humble anyone who endeavours to improve the lawn mower.

The faults of the existing lawn mowers are very evident, objectionable and taunting to anyone interested in improving upon them. To be more specific, some of the faults are that lawn mowers are hard to push, unable to cut close to obstacles, cannot cut very tall grass, are noisy, are jammed easily by sticks and stones, and cannot cut properly the grass along the edges of troughs or gardens which are lower than the lev e 1 of the grass. The following thesis is an investigation directed toward the solution of these problems in the design of a lawn mower.

Thesis Files