Dynamic Cone Penetration in Lunar Regolith Simulant

EasyChair Preprint 14544

Abstract

Surveying is necessary before anything can be built on the Moon. Exploration Architecture Corp. (XArc) proposed that geotechnical surveying on the Moon could be performed with a SurveyorBot; a robot equipped with cone penetrometers and seismic instruments. This research consists of development and testing of a mini dynamic cone penetrometer (Mini-DCP) with variable impact energy. The Mini-DCP acts both as a penetrometer and a seismic source, that is used in tandem with seismic instruments – geophones. Experiments are performed at the Extraterrestrial Environmental Simulation (EXTERRES) laboratory at the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources at the University of Adelaide. The experiments are performed to test the hammering energies that are required for the Mini-DCP to both penetrate the soil at a certain speed and for the seismic signal to be detectable at certain distances. Hammering energies that are too large penetrate through the soil too fast, not providing enough data about the layering. But hammering energies that are too low produce seismic waves that are too weak to be detected. Exact values depend on many parameters of the soil (e.g. relative density, cohesion), environment (e.g. atmosphere, gravity), and instruments (e.g. cone shape and size, instrument mass). Several of these parameters are being explored in this research. Mini-DCP testing as a penetrometer and a seismic source are performed using Lunar Highlands simulant (LHS-1E) in the regolith pit at the EXTERRES lab. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work supported by NASA under contract award Number 80NSSC23PB427. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NASA.

Keyphrases: Cone penetrometers, Geotechnical survey, Lunar Regolith

@booklet{EasyChair:14544,
  author    = {Karlis Slumba and Brendan Scott and Mark Jaksa and Samuel Ximenes},
  title     = {Dynamic Cone Penetration in Lunar Regolith Simulant},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 14544},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}