Preparation and characterization of a specialized lunar regolith simulant for use in lunar low gravity simulation

Abstract

Lunar in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) has been put on the agenda by many countries. Due to the special material nature and low gravity environment, the lunar regolith demonstrates significantly different behavior from terrestrial geomaterials. However, the systematic understanding of its geotechnical behavior is now seriously restricted by the scarcity of lunar regolith and the difficulty in simulating lunar gravity. A new lunar regolith simulant, termed as China University of Mining and Technology Number One (CUMT-1), has been developed to recover properties of the lunar regolith and simulate the lunar gravity by adopting the recently advanced geotechnical magnetic-similitude-gravity model testing (GMMT) method. The CUMT-1 simulant was prepared by reproducing the in-situ formation and fragmentation of the lunar matrix, which plays a key role in the irregular particle morphology. The mineralogical compositions, particle morphology and gradation, specific gravity, bulk density, void ratio, shear strength, and compressibility were determined. After quantifying the magnetization and magnetic-similitude-gravity characteristics, an application of the cone penetration resistance under low gravity was further given. The obtained results are compared to the values known for lunar regolith samples and other simulants, which demonstrates promising characteristics for use in geotechnical engineering-based and scientific-based applications, especially considering the influence of lunar gravity.