Fabrication and Characterization of A Lunar Simulant-Based Sintered Construction Material

In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) methods for extracting resources out of regolith is critical for enabling a long-term human presence on the Moon as well as Mars [1,2]. ISRU methods are being developed for a wide range of different purposes, including extraction of water (and other materials), radiation protection, etc. [2,3]. Also, ISRU methods, including sintering, are being developed for the creation of construction materials for the building of infrastructure on these solid planetary bodies. Sintering is a thermal-based ISRU method where finely grained material, such as regolith, is bonded together at temperatures just below the melting point [1-3]. Developing these processes as well as capabilties to characterize the quality, density, and amount of defects in such materials produced from this processes is important. We report on the fabrication of a lunar simulant-based sintered material, which was done using vacuum hot press (VHP) sintering. Also, we explore some nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods that are poentially applicable to these kinds of materails, including:

1. X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) [4]

2. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopic (THz-TDS) imaging [5-7]

This work has important implications for efforts to improve these types of lunar regolith-based construction material processes and identifying useful NDE methods for characterizing them.