Experimental Investigation of Drilling Performance of PCD Compact Core Drills on Basalt Simulating Sustainable Dry Drilling on Mars

Missions to Mars aim to characterize rock and subsurface soil samples and possibly bring some back to Earth for more thorough and sophisticated examination. The Martian surface is known to be partially covered with basalt which has high compressive strength, and is more difficult to drill than the much softer sedimentary formations. The experiments were designed to study the tool-wear mechanisms and to understand the associated effects on drilling of basalt. Core drilling experiments were conducted under different cutting conditions on the Martian simulant, basalt. Thrust force and torque were monitored and drill-wear was measured for each drilling test condition for a series of successive depth-increments. Based on the experimental results an optimization model was developed for maximizing the drilling depth at minimum tool-wear. This preliminary work is expected to help the development of smart drills for sustainable dry drilling applications in future NASA missions to Mars.