Designing Biopolymer-Bound Regolith Composites for Maximum Compressive Strength
Publication: Earth and Space 2021
ABSTRACT
Extraterrestrial construction presents many interesting and new challenges. Transporting large amounts of construction materials from Earth is cost prohibitive. Thus, to take advantage of limited in situ extraterrestrial resources, this work focuses on a novel class of biopolymer-bound soil composite (BSC) materials. These quasi-brittle composites are produced by desiccating a mixture of soil, water, and a biopolymer binder to create a versatile material with uniaxial compressive strength comparable to concrete. This paper expands upon a BSC design methodology for regolith soils. Previous work has been successful in reliably designing BSC materials with graded sands that exhibit compressive strengths above 20 MPa. Lunar regolith, JSC-1A simulant presents an additional challenge due to the broad ranges of the soil particle sizes. Nineteen BSC mixes using JSC-1A regolith were tested with varying biopolymer solution concentrations and biopolymer to soil ratios. A maximum compressive strength of 25 MPa was obtained at a biopolymer concentration of 48% and a biopolymer to soil ratio of 12.4%. A brief discussion on the effect of manufacturing variables on compressive strength and bulk density is presented. Finally, a design tool is introduced to design regolith BSC for desired compressive strength for future use in the structural design of structures on the Moon, Mars, or other extraterrestial bodies.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Allende, M. I., Davis, B. A., Miller, J. E., Christiansen, E. L., Lepech, M. D., and Loftus, D. J. (2019). “Hypervelocity impact performance of biopolymer-bound soil composites for space construction.” Journal of Aerospace Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0001110.
Alshibli, K., and Hasan, A. (2009). “Strength properties of JSC-1A lunar regolith simulant.” Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 135(5), 673–679.
APC Inc. (2015). “AP920(R) animal plasma.”
ASTM International. (2017). “ASTM C29/C29M-17a standard test method for bulk density (‘unit weight’) and voids in aggregate.” ASTM.
Ayeldeen, M. K., Negm, A. M., and El Sawwaf, M. A. (2016). “Evaluating the physical characteristics of biopolymer/soil mixtures.” Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 9(5), 371.
Bernhardt, J., and Pauly, H. (1980). “Pycnometric vs. densimetric measurements of highly viscous protein solutions.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry, 84(2), 158–162.
Brownsey, G. J., Noel, T. R., Parker, R., and Ring, S. G. (2003). “The glass transition behavior of the globular protein bovine serum albumin.” Biophysical Journal, 85(6), 3943–3950.
Chang, I., Im, J., Prasidhi, A. K., and Cho, G.-C. (2015). “Effects of Xanthan gum biopolymer on soil strengthening.” Construction and Building Materials, 74, 65–72.
Durchschlag, H. (1989). “Determination of the partial specific volume of conjugated proteins.” Colloid and Polymer Science, 267(12), 1139–1150.
Kamakura, S. (2015). “Tooth and tooth-supporting structures.” Advances in metallic biomaterials: Tissues, materials and biological reactions, Springer series in biomaterials science and engineering, M. Niinomi, T. Narushima, and M. Nakai, eds., Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 99–122.
Lee, H., Dellatore, S. M., Miller, W. M., and Messersmith, P. B. (2007). “Mussel-inspired surface chemistry for multifunctional coatings.” Science, 318(5849), 426–430.
Matos, G. R. (2017). Use of raw materials in the United States from 1900 through 2014. Fact sheet, USGS numbered series, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, Reston, VA.
Miller, S. A., Monteiro, P. J. M., Ostertag, C. P., and Horvath, A. (2016). “Comparison indices for design and proportioning of concrete mixtures taking environmental impacts into account.” Cement and Concrete Composites, 68, 131–143.
NASA JPL, and Satellite Broadband UK. (2018). “20 inventions we wouldn’t have without space travel.” Jet Propulsion Laboratory, <https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11358> (Oct. 30, 2019).
Proctor, R. (1933). “Fundamental principles of soil compaction.” Engineering News-Record, 111(13).
Roedel, H., Rosa, I., Allende, M. I., Lepech, M. D., Loftus, D. J., and Garboczi, E. J. (2019). “Prediction of ultimate compressive strength for biopolymer-bound soil composites (BSC) Using sliding wingtip crack analysis.” Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 106570.
Roedel, H., Rosa Plata, I., Lepech, M., and Loftus, D. (2015). “Sustainability assessment of protein-soil composite materials for limited resource environments.” Journal of Renewable Materials, 3(3), 183–194.
Rosa, I., Roedel, H., Allende, M. I., Lepech, M. D., and Loftus, D. J. (2020). “On designing biopolymer-bound soil composites (BSC) for peak compressive strength.” Journal of Renewable Materials.
U.S. EPA. (2015). Inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks: 1990-2013. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
Zeng, X., He, C., Oravec, H., Wilkinson, A., Agui, J., and Asnani, V. (2010). “Geotechnical properties of JSC-1A lunar soil simulant.” Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 23(2), 111–116.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Earth and Space 2021
Pages: 200 - 214
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Apr 15, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.