Development of a new technological scheme of the carousel milking platform based on the principles of magnetic levitation

The Carousel, the most capital–intensive and loaded milking unit, is a rotating platform that carries a large mechanical load. Its own weight, combined with the weight of the animals being moved, can reach 1200 kg per milking place or more. To reduce friction in the wheeled systems of high-loaded vehicles, large-sized assemblies and mechanisms of machinery and equipment, including agricultural machinery and aggregates, the use of magnetic suspension technology is promising. The research was carried out in order to develop a new technological scheme of a levitating rotating milking platform Carousel based on the principles of magnetic levitation. The creation of a fundamentally new resource-saving design of the Carousel milking platform based on the principles of magnetic levitation in order to increase its reliability and reduce operating costs due to the exclusion of wear on the propellers of the rail-wheel system is possible. A new scheme of a rotating milking platform Carousel using permanent magnet magnetic suspension technology without the use of wheel thrusters is proposed. Its force calculation was performed in the main mode of steady motion with the platform fully filled with animals and partially filled at the beginning and end of the milking cycle of animals, obtaining basic equations for determining the necessary repulsive forces in horizontal and vertical magnetic assemblies providing magnetic levitation (suspension) and lateral stabilization (centering) of the rotating platform.