By Andy Tomaswick
April 25, 2025
Recently there has been many progress in 3D pressure objects from the moon regoliths. We have reported several projects that tried this with different success. However, most of them require some additional functions, such as a polymer or salt water, as a binder. Recently, a newspaper from Julien Garnier and its co-authors of the University of Toulouse tried to produce compressing 3D printed objects with nothing but the Regolith itself.
It is expensive to bring things into space. So it should not be a surprise that a 3D printing technology that requires shipping large quantities from the earth is at a disadvantage. Various projects, such as one of a company called AI Spacefactory, use additives such as polymers that need to be produced on earth and are then shipped to the moon before they are combined with Regolith in situ.
Dr. Garnier hoped to deal with this requirement through selective laser melting (SLM) on a certain type of regolith analogue. This basalt of Pic d'Asson (BPY) is known and is collected from the picture d'Asson, an old, extinct volcano in France. In the early 2000s it began as a mondregolith simulant, due to its chemical and mineral composition, similarity to basaltic rocks that were found on the moon itself.
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BPY was the goal of several studies on the 3D -Lunar print. ESA researchers have published a paper in which a “solar sinter” technique is described that uses the power of the sun to merge PBY powder. Project Moonrise, of which we previously reported, also used BPY as the starting material in its 3D printing applications with zero gravites.
However, most of these studies have found that the BPY was not a snuff about tobacco, at least with regard to the compression strength of the resulting material. Despite the lower gravity of the moon, there are still stress on the buildings and equipment structures on the moon. If the pressure resistance of a material with this weight, even in the lower gravity, cannot handle weight, it is not used much as a building material.
Measurements for the compressive strength of 3D printed BPY vary dramatically on the type of 3D printing technology used. Powers of powder fusion processes that are used regularly to print metals on earth had a compressive strength of 4.2 MPa, just more than a standard masonry. However, this was with a porosity of almost 50% – which was almost half of the structure full of holes. The combination of 3D printed BPY with a geopolymer binder can increase its strength, but at the expense that the geopolymer must be shipped from the earth.
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The researcher Dr. Garnier and its co-authors focused on trying to uncover which properties of the BPY could lead to better mechanical properties. They varied properties, as the powder was primarily “crystalline” or “amorph”. Crystalline powder has a very orderly structure with some properties, such as: B. pressure resistance, which depending on the direction in which the organized crystal structure points are suitable. On the other hand, amorphous powder is much more disorganized, with its physical properties being the same in all directions.
The experiments showed a doubling of the pressure resistance of powder, which compared to powder, which was 100% amorphous, 100% crystalline, which emphasizes the importance of the regolith structure that was selected for the construction of the building materials of any future lunar base.
The optimization of this mixture between amorpher and crystalline structure remains on the list of things that can be done for future work, as well as the optimization of the particle size in the output floor and the parameters used in the SLM process to create the final material. It is still a long way for astronauts to print out something usable on the surface of the moon. But when the date for the return of mankind comes closer, it probably only uses a matter of time before a mission uses the resources that are available on our moon night – and you can do so by melting it with a laser.
Learn more:
J Garnier et al. -Selective laser melting of partially amorphema regolite analog for ISRU moon applications
Ut – moonrise: melting morulatory regolith with lasers to build structures on the moon
UT – NASA sends a 3D printer for mondregolith and more to the ISS
UT – What could we build with Mondregolith?
