Thermal Cycling And The Strength Of Primitive Asteroids

Abstract

One of outstanding questions about primitive asteroid surfaces with respect to in situ resources utilization (ISRU) and the potential to retrieve boulders off asteroidal surface is the effect of thermal cycling in near-Earth space on the strength of the boulder material. To address this issue we used the UCF/DSI Orgueil-Type CI simulant formed into "pucks"3 inches by 1.5 inches and thermal cycled them 220° C over four hours to mimic the rotational heating and cooling of an asteroid day/night cycle. We performed a total of 677 cycles and measured the Vickers hardness of the puck surface at regular intervals. The hardness of the surface material dropped by approximately 50% over the first 380 cycles and then leveled out to a constant hardness for the rest of the testing period. This suggests that differences in the coefficient of thermal expansion do weaken the surfaces of asteroidal materials, but that the weakening is limited and rapidly achieves a steady state.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

Earth and Space 2018: Engineering for Extreme Environments - Proceedings of the 16th Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments

Number of Pages

121-127

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784481899.013

Socpus ID

85091450138 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85091450138

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