Location
Arlington, Virginia
Date
14 Aug 2008, 2:30 pm - 2:40 pm
Abstract
Lunar regolith is the product of the intermittent comminution of rocks over extremely long durations, and as such is very different from familiar terrestrial soils. A limited amount of information on lunar regolith was collected by the Apollo space program for a few locations. Additional data is required to design effective excavators to prepare outpost sites and to mine the feedstock for production of the material required for a self-sustaining crewed base on the moon. On-site manufacturing would reduce significantly the mass of material that must be launched from Earth. This paper discusses what is known and what is yet unknown about the characteristics and anticipated behavior of lunar regolith as they pertain to efficient excavation operations on the moon. It also discusses the results of tests performed on lunar simulant in dry and frozen conditions and the effects of moisture content as well as temperature on the strength of the frozen material. The results of indentation tests will be presented along with discussion of the cutting forces required for mechanical excavation of the frozen regolith. Implications of material behavior on the design of the cutterhead of excavation systems will also be reviewed.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Second Department
Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering
Meeting Name
6th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2008 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Gertsch, Leslie S.; Rostami, Jamal; and Gustafson, Robert, "Review of Lunar Regolith Properties for Design of Low Power Lunar Excavators" (2008). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 2.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/6icchge/session10/2
Review of Lunar Regolith Properties for Design of Low Power Lunar Excavators
Arlington, Virginia
Lunar regolith is the product of the intermittent comminution of rocks over extremely long durations, and as such is very different from familiar terrestrial soils. A limited amount of information on lunar regolith was collected by the Apollo space program for a few locations. Additional data is required to design effective excavators to prepare outpost sites and to mine the feedstock for production of the material required for a self-sustaining crewed base on the moon. On-site manufacturing would reduce significantly the mass of material that must be launched from Earth. This paper discusses what is known and what is yet unknown about the characteristics and anticipated behavior of lunar regolith as they pertain to efficient excavation operations on the moon. It also discusses the results of tests performed on lunar simulant in dry and frozen conditions and the effects of moisture content as well as temperature on the strength of the frozen material. The results of indentation tests will be presented along with discussion of the cutting forces required for mechanical excavation of the frozen regolith. Implications of material behavior on the design of the cutterhead of excavation systems will also be reviewed.
