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http://dx.doi.org/10.12652/Ksce.2020.40.1.0051

A Study on Lunar Soil Simulant Pretreatment for Effective Simulation of Lunar Surface Environment  

Chung, Taeil (KICT)
Kim, Young-Jae (KICT)
Ryu, Byung-Hyun (KICT)
Shin, Hyu-Soung (KICT)
Publication Information
KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research / v.40, no.1, 2020 , pp. 51-58 More about this Journal
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.
Keywords
Lunar surface environment simulation; Lunar soil simulant; Soil drying; Moisture removal; Vacuum;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 2  (Citation Analysis)
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