Paving the road for large area sintering of regolith
Paving the road for large area sintering of regolith
Abstract
Lunar regolith can be sintered/melted by intensive solar or laser radiation to dense and rigid structures. 3D objects are obtained layer by layer. For reaching the required energy densities, sunlight can be focused by means of mirrors of lenses. A major concern is, however the quality of parts manufactured. Moreover, building infrastructure requires a minimum productivity of processes engaged. Regolith is not simply compacted to arbitrary geometries when locally annealed by intensive light. A rapid densification of the generally fluffy powders is associated with melting and viscous flow resulting in a significant deformation of initially homogeneous powder beds. Light focused to small spots is favored for obtaining parts with good geometrical definition, but productivity is generally low. Large spots would be needed for establishing infrastructural elements, such as roads, landing pads, but for the reasons mentioned structural integrity of parts manufactured will be low. As the worldwide only group having the experience and the equipment for successfully laser sintering ceramic powders (quartz) to defect free structures in areas larger than 1 m2 at variable atmosphere, we herewith propose a comprehensive study on the selective sintering of Lunar and Martian regolith in large areas at appropriate atmosphere, in combination with layer by layer sintering for the manufacture of 3D parts. Know-how acquired will lead to the construction of equipment capable to pave areas with molten regolith and to manufacture voluminous massive 3D structures. A twostep approach is suggested: 1. Study of the sintering behavior of regolith in large spot local radiation. The equipment available comprises a 12 kW cw. CO2 Laser, telescope optics for variation of laser spot size up to 100mm at parallel incident in a 1 m3 vacuum chamber. 2. Know-how transfer to build an autonomously working sinter unit, using concentrated sunlight as energy source and the moon surface as powder bed.
TU Clausthal
- Early Technology Development
The objective of the study is to investigate the large area sintering/melting of lunar regolith, which could be performed directly on the surface of the Moon without requiring pre-processing. The parameters to investigate are the maximum sintering depth achievable and the tendency to form defects in a large area, using a concentrated light source with a focus diameter up to 100 mm. As a result, a feasibility evaluation of sintering tracks and an estimation of the productivity and quality will be provided. Possible applications are in the consolidation of large areas, including landing tracks and infrastructures. The stacking of layers for the additive manufacturing of voluminous 3D geometries is a major concern of the study, also.
Jens Günster is head of division "Ceramic Processing and Biomaterials" at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) in Berlin and a professor at Clausthal University of Technology. His current research interests include laser processing and additive manufacturing of ceramics. His group was the first to introduce powder-based 3D printing into zero-g experiments.
Andrea Zocca is researcher at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) in Berlin and works in the group of Jens Günster. His main research interests are in the field of additive manufacturing of ceramic materials, particularly technical ceramics, and the application of additive manufacturing for in situ resource utilization for space exploration.
Janka Wilbig is PhD student at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung. Her main research field is the process monitoring and the quality assesment along the process chain of additive manufacturing technologies.
Miranda Fateri is junior professor with the focus on Additive Manufacturing research at university of Aalen. She has several years of experience on processing of the lunar regolith for additive Manufacturing using lasers, solar light and microwave as well as experience on conducting experiments under Microgravity conditions. Miranda Fateri and university of Aalen Additive Manufacturing group will contribute to the simulant characterization and process parameter optimization for SLM.
- Large scale habitat infrastructure construction
- Large scale mobility infrastructure construction
- Large scale construction of ancillary infrastructure
- Hardware manufacturing
- 2. improvement of cost efficiency
- 3. faster adoption of innovative technology
- Science & Exploration
- Safety & Security
- Applications
- Enabling & Support
ESA Lunar mission campaigns, European Space Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P)
2nd Round idea
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- Dec 4, 2019
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