Development of Novel Carousel Milking Platform Technology Scheme Based on Magnetic Levitation Principles

The Carousel, the most capital intensive and highly loaded milking unit, is a rotating milking parlor platform that carries a great mechanical load. Its total mass combined with the mass of traveling animals is 1200 kg or more per milking stall. The use of magnetic suspension technology is considered promising to reduce friction in the wheel systems of heavy load vehicles, large assemblies, and machine and equipment mechanisms, including agricultural machinery and aggregates. Research was carried out in order to develop a novel levitation module platform technology scheme for a Carousel rotary milking parlor based on magnetic levitation principles. Creation of a fundamentally novel resource-saving design of the Carousel milking parlor platform based on magnetic levitation principles in order to improve its operational reliability and to reduce operating costs, except for the problems of wear of the “rail—wheel” movement systems, is possible. A novel scheme for the Carousel rotary milking parlor platform with the use of the technology for magnetic suspension on permanent magnets without any wheel movers is proposed. Estimation of its forces in the main mode of steady motion of the platform for completely and partially filled parlors with animals at the beginning and at the end of milking procedures was performed. This resulted in basic equations to calculate the repulsive forces required in horizontal and vertical magnetic assemblies to provide magnetic levitation (suspension) and lateral stabilization (alignment) of the rotary platform.