Compressive deformation of porous lunar regolith

Mechanical behaviour of additively manufactured lunar regolith simulant components

“…Recent work has established that PBF can successfully process naturally occurring terrestrial multi-component ceramic materials of igneous origin, which act to simulate a range of key properties such as bulk chemistry, mineralogy and mechanical performance for indigenous materials found on the Moon and Mars. [10][11][12][13] Previous studies related to the concept of 3D printing using extra-terrestrial/astro-materials as feedstock, and their state-of-the art available simulants, [14][15][16] have covered fundamental topics ranging from raw materials' physical properties [17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and their engineering characteristics [24][25][26][27][28] to the development of process parameters 11,13 for the relevant 3D printing technique. Despite all the work that has been done on the research of the materials and manufacturing mechanisms, there is still little information available on the actual mechanical performance of the fabricated components, especially in terms of relating the resulting material microstructure to the processing characteristics and method.…”

Ceramic Material Processing Towards Future Space Habitat: Electric Current-Assisted Sintering of Lunar Regolith Simulant

“…Both samples utilized lower temperatures than previous studies processed by conventional sintering, which are usually in the range of 1050–1200 °C [ 8 , 9 , 15 ]. The reduced particle size and applied pressure during sintering are the main contributions to the reduction of sintering temperature.…”

“…To study the possibility of processing lunar regolith, simulants with similar compositions have been used to demonstrate the feasibilities of material processing on the Moon. Previous studies have demonstrated the processing of lunar simulant powders via various bulk ceramic sintering techniques, including conventional sintering [ 8 , 9 ], microwave sintering [ 10 , 11 , 12 ], solar sintering [ 13 , 14 ], 3D printing [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], direct laser fabrication [ 22 ], selective laser melting [ 23 , 24 ], and glass-forming techniques [ 25 ].…”

Determining the feasible conditions for processing lunar regolith simulant via laser powder bed fusion

“…[5] (σCYS=2.3 MPa) and for the D-shape technology by Cesaretti et al [2] (σCYS=20 MPa). Nonetheless, values in excess of 200 MPa reported by Indyk et al [47] and Gualtieri and Bandyopadhyay [48] for thermally sintered JSC-1A (using conventional sintering method through application of external pressure and heating at elevated temperatures), indicate that there is still a margin for the improvement of the mechanical characteristics of LPBF deposited material. Compression strength testing of samples produced through conventional concrete production process have reported values ranging from 31 MPa (Toutanji et al, [49]), 37 MPa (Montes et al, [50]) to 74 MPa (Lin et al [51]).…”