Abstract
Establishing a lunar base requires the design and construction of infrastructure that can withstand the Moon’s hazardous environment. This study explores the effects of micrometeoroid impacts on a biopolymer-bound soil composite (BSC), a novel construction material that leverages in situ resource utilization to significantly reduce costs associated with resource transportation from Earth. Using a small fraction of biopolymer to bind regolith, BSC can be used to build radiation and micrometeoroid shielding for habitats, stable landing and launching pads, and pavements that help to contain dust. To determine the relationship between hypervelocity impacts and BSC material damage, 19 hypervelocity impact experiments were conducted on BSC targets. Analytical power-law relationships were derived to predict transient crater dimensions, such as volume and diameter, from projectile features, such as diameter, density, and velocity. The scaling exponents determined for BSC transient crater volume and diameter are comparable to those of quartzite, sandstone, and basalt and indicate that crater formation in BSC is largely driven by the kinetic energy of the projectile, as expected for cohesive low-porosity materials.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes generated or used during this study are available from the corresponding author by request, including the experimental hypervelocity impact data, BSC sample mix design data, and crater analysis methods.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship. We gratefully acknowledge the technical contributions from the teams at the NASA White Sands Testing Facility and NASA Johnson Space Center’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science. We also would like to thank the Lepech Group, including Isamar Rosa and Andrea Coto, for their support and feedback.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 2 • March 2020
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©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 7, 2019
Accepted: Sep 9, 2019
Published online: Jan 8, 2020
Published in print: Mar 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jun 8, 2020
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