Influence of Mineral Composition on Sintering Lunar Regolith
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 30, Issue 4
Abstract
The authors investigate mechanical properties of sintered lunar regolith. Using JSC-1A and DNA lunar simulants, they study the influence of changes in glass content, main plagioclase series, and ilmenite content on a defined sintering process and on the mechanical properties of resulting sintered samples. Ilmenite addition up to 20 wt% of the regolith showed a negligible effect on the sintered product. The anorthite plagioclase endmember cannot be replaced by albite, responsible for the low sintering temperature of DNA and covering up the effect of the glass phase. The vacuum environment was revealed to have a positive effect on JSC-1A sintering: the grains bond at lower temperature than in air, thus preventing the formation of additional porosity and increasing the compression strength up to 152 MPa compared with only 98 MPa for sintering JSC-1A in air.
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Acknowledgments
This work has been carried out within the project entitled “3D printing of a model building block for a lunar base outershell” funded by ESA’s General Support Technology Programm (GSTP). The authors wish to thank Advenit Makaya and Laurent Pambaguian, from ESA-ESTEC, for the interesting discussions and constructive comments during the project.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 30 • Issue 4 • July 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 2, 2016
Accepted: Oct 28, 2016
Published online: Feb 10, 2017
Published in print: Jul 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 10, 2017
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