The extraction of oxygen and water from the lunar regolith for use as propulsion and life support consumables is an essential feature of any extended‐duration missions on the Moon and in preparations for Mars. Most methods for extracting these resources involve heating lunar regolith to significant temperatures under the constraint of a limited power supply. This paper will discuss an innovative method for uniformly heating regolith using a vibrofluidized reactor. Various flow regimes encountered during vibrofluidization and preliminary heat transfer results using a standard Lunar regolith simulant, JSC‐1, are presented for a range of acceleration levels and vibration frequencies. The results show that regolith compaction, segregation, or convective mixing can be accomplished depending on the acceleration levels chosen. Granular convection is shown to produce uniform temperature within the heated vibrofluidized reactor. Scaling laws that link performance in normal Earth gravity and Lunar gravity is also discussed.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    A Vibrofluidized Reactor for Resource Extraction from Lunar Regolith


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    SPACE TECH.& APPLIC.INT.FORUM-STAIF 2006: 10th Conf Thermophys Applic Microgravity; 23rd Symp Space Nucl Pwr & Propulsion; 4th Conf Human/Robotic Tech & Nat'l Vision for Space Explor.; 4th Symp Space Coloniz.; 3rd Symp on New Frontiers & Future Concepts ; 2006 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 813 , 1 ; 1101-1110


    Publication date :

    2006-01-20


    Size :

    10 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    A Vibrofluidized Reactor for Resource Extraction from Lunar Regolith

    Nayagam, V. / Sacksteder, K. R. / American Institute of Physics | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2006


    Lunar Resource Utilization: Development of a Reactor for Volatile Extraction from Regolith

    Kleinhenz, Julie / Sacksteder, Kurt / Nayagam, Vedha | AIAA | 2008


    Lunar Resource Utilization: Development of a Reactor for Volatile Extraction from Regolith

    Kleinhenz, J. / Sacksteder, K. / Nayagam, V. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008


    Analysis of Water Extraction from Lunar Regolith

    Hegde, Uday / Balasubramaniam, Ramaswamy / Gokoglu, Suleyman | AIAA | 2012


    Lunar Regolith

    Gies, J. V. / American Society for Civil Engineers; Aerospace Division | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996