Design of Lunar Regolith Forming System Based on Concentrated Solar Energy

Abstract

To address the in-situ manufacturing requirements for lunar regolith on the moon surface，a novel lunar regolith melting and forming device was designed，incorporating concentrated solar energy，flexible optical fiber transmission, and powder bed fusion technology， considering the constraints imposed by the lunar environment and the processing conditions required for regolith forming. Constructing two experimental verification setups (one outdoor and one indoor)，using basaltic material from Jilin University (JLU) as a proxy for lunar regolith, feasibility experiments were conducted utilizing both outdoor solar concentrators and indoor simulated solar radiation to verify the process of lunar regolith melting and forming. Experimental results reveal that at outdoor solar irradiance intensity of 636 W/m2and scanning speed of 1 mm/min，continuous lunar regolith sintering was achieved while due to the variability and limitations of natural sunlight, stable long-term operation of the device outdoors could not be maintained; sim；ulating the equivalent energy input from the lunar surface conditions using a solar simulator indoors，when the electrical power of the solar simulator was 5,600 W，scanning speed was 30 mm/min and layer thickness was 2 mm，the formed samples exhibited maximum apparent density，achieving an apparent density of 2.16 g/cm3and a compressive strength of 4.25 MPa. This study verifies the feasibility of melting and forming technology based on concentrated solar energy，offering valuable insights for the feasibility assessment of in-situ lunar construction schemes，and the design, calibration and verification of payload devices.

Keywords

lunar regolith / scheme design / concentrated solar energy / manufacturing process / process testing