文章基本信息

标题：Controlling soil disturbance of a lunar regolith simulant bed during depressurization in a vacuum chamber
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作者：Gyu-Hyun Go ; Jangguen Lee ; Taeil Chung 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2021
卷号：11
期号：1
页码：1878
DOI：10.1038/s41598-021-81317-1
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：Abstract A dusty thermal vacuum chamber (DTVC) containing a regolith simulant bed is essential for testing equipment and techniques related to lunar surface exploration. Space agencies have been reluctant to operate a DTVC because of the challenge of controlling soil disturbance of the lunar regolith simulant bed during pumping down or depressurization, which may contaminate or even damage the chamber and vacuum equipment. There appears to be no previously available solution to this problem, or how to avoid it. We investigated the mechanism of soil disturbance during depressurization and established a criterion for evaluating its occurrence. The proposed criterion was validated by extensive experiments and numerical modelling to simulate air evacuation from soil voids. There is a critical pressure difference (CPD) between the top and bottom of the lunar regolith simulant bed that causes soil disturbance during depressurization. We found a simple equation estimating the CPD and further provided guideline on the optimum depressurization rate to avoid soil disturbance before the target vacuum level is achieved under varying soil conditions.