Rheological Properties of Lunar Mortars

NASA has revealed that they plan to resume manned missions and ensure the permanent presence of people in so-called habitats on Moon by 2024. are expected be built using local resources—it is planned use lunar regolith as aggregate concrete. Lunar concrete design requires a new approach terms both production technology operating conditions significantly different from Earth. Considering more often it assumed water present form ice might used maintain base, but also construct base structure, authors decided investigate slightly traditional composites than recently promoted sulfur polymer thermally hardened cured. Numerous compositions cement “lunar micro-mortars” mortars” were made tested study rheological properties, namely, consistency, which largely depend morphology fine-grained filler, i.e., regolith. For obvious reasons, simulant (LRS) was place original The LRS mapped grain size distribution real It created for purpose studying erosive effect dusty fractions moving parts landers other mechanical equipment; therefore, simulated well behavior particles relation paste. obtained results possible develop preliminary (possible apply in, e.g., 3D printing) prepare, test, evaluate mortar properties comparison quartz mortars (under Earth laboratory).