SONG Lei1,2，XU Jiao1*，TANG Hong3*，FAN Shu-qian1，LIU Jian-zhong3，LI Xiong-yao3，LIU Ji-quan1
(1. Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing 400714, China;
2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101407, China;
3. China Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China)
Abstract: The construction of the lunar base is a preliminary mission goal for exploring the moon and outer space at present. However, due to the high transportation cost between the earth and the moon, the base construction in future is probably tended to adopt the way of "In situ resource utilization" which means the direct utilization of Lunar resources. Lunar soil is an available resource everywhere on the moon surface. If it can be used effectively, the cost of the lunar base construction will be greatly reduced. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of a large amount of raw materials for the lunar base construction, various domestic and oversea scholars are carrying out various molding experiments using the real lunar soils sampled by the Apollo space program and various simulated lunar soil samples prepared in various laboratories to explore the possibility of in-situ utilization of lunar resources via utilization of lunar soil. Based on this, in this paper, the progresses of domestic and international researches on the molding technologies and methods of simulated lunar soil have been generalized and summarized. The application prospective and possible challenges of these methods and technologies on the moon have been discussed in detail based on the actual environment of the lunar surface. In addition, difficulties of the transportation of large equipment to the moon and utilization of additional additives in the actual environment of the moon have also been discussed. Moreover, results of the molding experiment on the Chinese prepared CLRS series of simulated lunar soils and ilmenite powders by using the laser 3D printing technology have been introduced in detail. The effects of process parameters of the laser 3D printing technology and powder prepressing technique on the molding of simulated lunar soils by using laser sintering have been elucidated. The research on the sintering mechanism and compositional evolution of the simulated lunar soil has been introduced in detail. Then the effects of sintering temperature and environment, compositions, sizes, and granularity of simulated lunar soils on the sintering process have been discussed. The importance of mechanism study on the molding of simulated lunar soil has been pointed out. The purpose of this paper is to provide references for the development of researches on the in-situ utilization of lunar surface resources, technology and mechanism of the molding of lunar soils in the future.
Keywords: the simulated lunar soil; molding; 3D-printing; laser sintering
ACTA MINERALOGICA SINICA Vol. 40, No.1, 2020, page 47-57
