EVALUATION OF THE USE OF AN ARTIFICIAL TEAT TO MEASURE THE FORCES APPLIED BY A MILKING MACHINE TEATCUP LINER

An artificial teat containing a force transducer was constructed to st udy the forces exerted by the liner on the teat during milking. The ob jective was to develop a method of comparing the action of different l iners under a variety of different milking conditions. The rigid struc ture of the artificial teat did not provide an accurate representation of a real teat but deformable models used in the past have not proved practical. Initial tests of the teat showed that it gave repeatable r esults during calibration. When placed in a liner, however, repeatable results could not be obtained if the teat-liner interface was disturb ed. The forces that were measured under simulated milking conditions v aried with liner wall position and with time. There was a peak and tro ugh prior to a stable asymptotic value being attained and a noticeable time lag behind pulsation chamber pressure. This technique can be use d to compare liners when a reliable method of locating the artificial teat within the liner has been developed.