Milking installation with milk pump
AssigneeLely Patent N.V.
InventorsGerard Mostert, Jacobus Izaak Van De Walle, Dimitris Douzoulikopoulos
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A milking installation with a milking robot for automatically connecting teat cups to the teats of a dairy animal has milk lines extending between the teat cups and a milk de-aeration unit or milk glass. A de-aeration port is present at the top of the de-aeration unit and a de-aeration line connects the milk glass to a vacuum system. At the bottom of the milk glass a milk inlet line is provided which connects the milk glass to the milk pump. The milk pump includes a milk inlet, a pump housing, a milk outlet. The milk pump is a membrane pump which type of pump is known to be gentle to the milk and thus reduce occurrence of lypolysis of the milk when pumped through the milking installation.
Claims16
A milking installation comprising a milk de-aeration unit and a membrane milk pump, the milk pump pumps milk out of the milk de-aeration unit, the milk pump comprising:
- a tubular housing,
- a flexible tubular member insertable in said housing and being hermetically sealeable with respect to the housing, and comprising a first and a second open end,
- a fluid inlet member and a fluid outlet member attachable respectively to the first and second open ends of the tubular member,
- wherein the inlet member and the outlet member define a one-way flow path through the tubular member, and
- wherein the housing comprises a connection port for coupling to a source of alternating pressure which during use alternatingly varies the pressure in a space between the housing and the tubular member between a decompression stage in which the tubular member expands and a compression stage in which the tubular member collapses pushing milk out of the tubular member and wherein the flexible tubular member, the fluid inlet member and the fluid outlet member form a unitary subassembly that is removably insertable in said housing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.