Image-Based Modeling of Lunar Soil Simulant for 3-D DEM Simulations

This paper describes an entire procedure to realize an image-based DEM (Discrete Element Method) simulation with lunar soil. Since the detailed grain shape information of the returned sample of the lunar soil is not available, one of its simulant, FJS-1, is used in this study. High resolution micro X-ray CT system at SPring-8, a synchrotron radiation facility in Japan, makes it possible to visualize 3-D image of FJS-1 granular assembly in details. Then a newly developed image analysis procedure is adopted to identify each individual grain from the others. Using the obtained grain shape data, a sufficient number of FJS-1 grains are directly modeled for DEM simulation. A preliminary simulation is performed using these FJS-1 DEM grains and its performance is discussed.