Impact formation of ultralow-binder-content composite “lunar cement”

Abstract

Strong structural materials were produced by using JSC-1a lunar soil simulant, with only 4 wt% epoxy binder. The flexural strength reached 12–16 MPa, comparable with typical steel-reinforced concrete. The processing mainly involved dropping a hammer on the premixed simulant and binder. The flexural strength increased with the impact energy. With the same impact energy, using a heavier hammer was beneficial. The energy consumption was only on the order of 5 kJ/kg. This technique offers a fast and relatively simple in situ resource utilization approach to fabricate structural parts on the Moon, with a minimum requirement on the material components transported from Earth.