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Projecte llegit

Títol: Measurement of regolith thermal properties in a lunar analog

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: GONZÁLEZ CINCA, RICARD

Departament: FIS

Títol: Measurement of regolith thermal properties in a lunar analog

Data inici oferta: 05-02-2024     Data finalització oferta: 05-10-2024


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    MU AEROSPACE S&T 21
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Paraules clau:
ISRU, regolith, thermal mass, regolith simulant, thermal conductivity
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
Numerical and experimental work will be carried out for the preparation of an experiment to measure regolith thermal properties in a lunar analog.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
One of the biggest challenges of the establishment of a lunar base is ensuring the survival of the crew and the facilities. A critical factor for the survival of the crew and the installations is the provision of energy, which turns into a critical challenge due to the environmental conditions on the Moon and the lunar day-night cycle which
ensures long periods of darkness.
Several approaches have been considered to store and provide energy to a lunar base by means of In-Situ Resources Utilization. One of them is the possibility to use
the lunar regolith as a thermal mass.
The main objective of this work is to design an experiment for measuring regolith thermal properties in Lanzarote. It aims at establishing the temperature-dependance of regolith thermal properties. The measurement of the thermal properties will allow the evaluation of the relevance of using the lunar regolith as a thermal mass for energy storage purposes, more precisely for keeping the rovers warm during the lunar nights. As it will be explained, the thermal conductivity of regolith is very limited. Therefore, the sintering of regolith has been studied in order to improve its thermal properties.
First, the environmental conditions and the characteristics of the materials used for the experiment are studied. The thermal properties of the different materials used in
this experiment have been assessed with the aim of establishing reference values. In addition, temperature-dependant models are proposed for the thermal properties of
the materials.
Then, the resources needed for the experiment are determined and the configuration of the experiment is decided. The implementation of the experiment has been designed focusing on the solar concentrating system, used to increase the
temperature of the materials, and the data acquisition systems.
Finally, some simulations are carried out through COMSOL. The simulations help to determine the validity of the proposed models, determine the similarities between the
thermal behaviour of Lanzarote's soil and lunar regolith, as well as outline the interest of sintering regolith to improve its thermal properties for energy storage purposes.
In conclusion, this work proposes an experiment to measure some of the thermal properties of a regolith simulant in Earth conditions. Since a similar experiment is to
take place on the Moon, the simplicity of the implementation has been prioritized during the development of this project.

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