Nations across the world are now in a race to build the first Moon base and exploit the in-situ resources such as helium 3 and lunar ice. The European Space Agency has recruited the next generation of astronauts that will go back to the moon on the Artemis project. As those lines are written, Nasa has launched its new lunar lander Peregrine 1 and has just received its first signals from orbit. Peregrine 1 is expected to reach the moon by end of February, the first US lander there for 50 years. Japan will try to land on the moon by the end of January 2024. India has already landed on the moon in 2023. China was the first country to land on the far side of the moon, in January 2019, where it deployed the Yutu-2 rover.
Additive manufacturing using regolith, the main Lunar in-situ material resource, is offering a solution for long duration stay on the Moon or Mars. Appling Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology to build infrastructures or tools will reduce the space transportation efforts from Earth and lower the cost of the space missions. Furthermore, additive manufacturing will be a precious asset for compagnies looking into settlements for space mining of various resources.
However, many challenges still lie ahead to optimize the SLS process. First of all, the regolith composition is region dependent. Various simulant thus must be tested and their respective adequate experimental conditions for correct sintering compared. Furthermore, the mechanical integrity of the manufactured samples must match the requirements depending on the diverse applications.
Our research team has developed a powder bed SLS prototype using a 100 W CW laser. Multiple 3D structures have been manufactured using various lunar soil simulants. The process conditions are optimized thanks to a numerical model developed on COMSOL Muliphysics.
Nonetheless, the processing condition do not currently reflect those that will be met in space such as gravity or atmosphere. In order to recreate some of the conditions, a vacuum chamber with 10-2mbar capacity is currently being refurnished in collaboration with the International Space University and Aalen University. This chamber will host X/Y/Z/rotation stages. The outside will be adapted to fit the laser and galvo head to stir the beam.
A new simulant from IRAP will be tested. The thermomechanical characterization of the samples will be made by the CGE team at ICube, Strasbourg, Icam Toulouse and the Institut Clement Ader, Albi.
The PhD candidate will have to focus on:
The optimization of the process in the experimental powder bed SLS machine for various simulants
The optimization of the process in the low atmospheric conditions
The optimization of the numerical model
The PhD candidate will work on three sites, Icam Strasbourg-Europe in Schiltigheim, ICube and ISU at Illkirsh.
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