Teat cup liner

Details Teat cup liner Teat cup liner

1992-08-31

1993-06-01

Mancene, Gene

Animal husbandry

Milkers

Teat compressor or cup

A01J 504

Patent

active

052150364

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a teat cup liner, comprising a tubular thin walled pulsation portion having two ends, a tubular radially enlarged head portion extending from one end of the pulsation portion, and a rotationally symmetrical tubular thick walled shaft portion extending from the other end of the pulsation portion. The shaft portion has an outer annular groove for receiving an annular end of a shape permanent, rotationally symmetrical tubular teat cup, on which the teat cup liner is to be mounted with the teat cup abutting against the head portion, so that the pulsation portion is axially stretched.
In order to provide a firm enggement between a teat cup liner of this kind and the teat cup, as the teat cup liner is mounted on the teat cup, the otuer groove of the shaft portion is dimensioned with a somewhat larger inner diameter than that of said annular end of the teat cup. Said firm engagement is necessary to fix the teat cup liner in a stretched state and to seal between the liner and the teat cup. In spite of the fact that the shaft portion is thick walled to avoid undesired deformations of the shaft portion it has been proved that the inner surface of the shaft portion gets an annular bulging at the other groove, when the teat cup liner is mounted in the teat cup. When using the teat cup liner during milking said bulging throttles the milk flow through the shaft portion, which often may lead to disturbances in the intended milking process.
Said bulging on the shaft portion can also result in that the liner will not fulfil some authorities' restrictive standards for the smallest allowable flow through area in the interior of the shaft portion.
The inner diameter of the shaft portion could certainly be made larger, so that also the diameter of the bulging would be increased, in order to counteract throttling of the milk flow. However, in such a case also the outer diameter of the shaft portion has to be increased to maintain the wall thickness of the shaft portion. In consequence, an entirely new expensive forming tool would be required. The teat cups of existing milking equipments would not fit to such larger teat cup liners, but would have to be replaced by new ones. In addition to this, an increased otuer diameter of the shaft portion would deteriorate the flexility of the shaft portion.
As an alternative, the core of the existing forming tool could be somewhat modified, so that a compensating inner annular groove is formed on the inside of the shaft portion axially on a level with the outer annular groove. Such an inner groove adequately formed should be able to prevent a bulging of the inner surface of the shaft portion as the teat cup liner is mounted in the teat cup. However, such an inner compensating groove to an unallowable extent would reduce the wall thickness of the shaft portion between the outer and inner grooves, so that the strength of the shaft portion would not be satisfactory.
The object of the present invention is to provide an improved teat cup liner, which fits to the existing type of teat cups and maintains the intended hole diameter along the entire shaft portion, as the teat cup liner is mounted on the teat cup, without requiring an entirely new forming tool and without deteriorating the strength of the shaft portion.
This object is obtained by a teat cup liner of the kind initially described, which mainly is characterized in that the tubular shaft portion is provided with an inner annular groove, which is situated close to the outer groove of the shaft portion, but axially displaced relative to the outer groove in direction from the pulsation portion.
As a result, it has surprisingly been proved that said inner groove counteracts the formation of the annular bulging on the inner surface of the shaft portion, as the teat cup liner is mounted on the teat cup. The axial state of strain arisen in the pulsation portion of a mounted teat cup liner apparently results in such a shearing of the wall of the shaft portion at the area of the engagement of the teat cup with th

REFERENCES:
patent: 1955810 (1932-06-01), Hodsdon
patent: 2744496 (1956-05-01), Roben
patent: 4141319 (1979-02-01), Maier et al.
patent: 4425872 (1984-01-01), Mills
patent: 4572106 (1986-02-01), Mills

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