Mobile QR Code QR CODE : Journal of the Korean Society of Civil Engineers
Title A Study on Lunar Soil Simulant Pretreatment for Effective Simulation of Lunar Surface Environment
Authors 정태일(Chung, Taeil) ; 김영재(Kim, Young-Jae) ; 유병현(Ryu, Byung-Hyun) ; 신휴성(Shin, Hyu-Soung)
DOI https://doi.org/10.12652/Ksce.2020.40.1.0051
Page pp.51-58
ISSN 10156348
Keywords 달 지상 환경 모사;인공월면토;토양 건조;수분 제거;진공 Lunar surface environment simulation;Lunar soil simulant;Soil drying;Moisture removal;Vacuum
Abstract As interest in lunar exploration increases, studies on lunar surface environment simulation including a lunar soil simulant are being conducted. One of the problems when creating a vacuum environment with lunar soil is that it takes long time to reach high vacuum due to outgas from the soil. Most of the outgas is water, and the time to reach high vacuum can be significantly reduced by a pretreatment process that removes moisture adhering to the surface of the lunar soil before putting soil into a vacuum chamber. The existing soil drying methods were examined to determine how these methods were effective to remove moisture from the lunar simulant soil. Drying experiments of lunar soil samples were carried out using a dry oven, a microwave oven, direct heating method and a vacuum oven, and the results of the drying experiment were presented. Drying soil at 110℃ using a dry oven and drying soil by a microwave oven were not enough to remove moisture, and vacuum oven drying method and direct heating drying method at more than 200℃ were effective in water removal.