Laboratory-Scale Distributed Pressure Measurements of Blade Interaction with JSC-1A Lunar Simulant

Because of the requirement for high reliability and very low weight, extraterrestrial excavator blade design for in situ resource utilization (ISRU) must be more precise than for current terrestrial practice. Three-dimensional finite-element and discrete-element models should be employed to enhance the precision of designs. These models require that the pressure distribution across the blade be known; however, this information is not available in the literature. To provide the information, this project measured the pressure distribution on a suite of laboratory-scale blades. The project constructed a suite of laboratory-scale model blades, designed and implemented distributed pressure and total load measurements, developed soil preparation techniques, measured pressure distributions and errors, and created empirical pressure distribution models. The models include: an array of point pressures, a quadratic function, and an exponential function. The work concluded that a V-shaped blade with a tapered curve is the best configuration, and multiple passes of small-depth cuts is the best excavation operating procedure.