Measurement of regolith thermal properties in a lunar analog
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 th...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/412248 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/412248 |
| Access Level: | acceso embargado |
| Palabra clave: | Space sciences Lunar soil--Analysis ISRU Regolith Thermal mass Regolith simulant Thermal conductivity Regolita (Lanzarote) Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Aeronàutica i espai |
| Sumario: | 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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