Predicting residual friction angle of lunar regolith based on Chang'e-5 lunar samples

Jiayan Nie; Yifei Cui; Kostas Senetakis; Dan Guo; Yu Wang; Guodong Wang; Peng Feng; Huaiyu He; Xuhang Zhang; Xiaoping Zhang; Cunhui Li; Hu Zheng; Wei Hu; Fujun Niu; Quanxing Liu; Anyuan Li

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2023.03.019

Predicting residual friction angle of lunar regolith based on Chang'e-5 lunar samples

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2023 Apr 15;68(7):730-739. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.03.019. Epub 2023 Mar 13.

Authors

Jiayan Nie¹, Yifei Cui², Kostas Senetakis³, Dan Guo⁴, Yu Wang⁵, Guodong Wang⁶, Peng Feng⁷, Huaiyu He⁸, Xuhang Zhang⁸, Xiaoping Zhang⁹, Cunhui Li¹⁰, Hu Zheng¹¹, Wei Hu¹², Fujun Niu¹³, Quanxing Liu¹⁴, Anyuan Li¹⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: yifeicui@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
³ Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Surface Process, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁷ Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau 999078, China.
¹⁰ Science and Technology on Vacuum Technology and Physics Laboratory, Lanzhou Institute of Physics, Lanzhou 730000, China.
¹¹ Department of Geotechnical Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China.
¹³ South China Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China.
¹⁴ School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
¹⁵ Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics and Geohazards of Zhejiang Province, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing 312000, China.

PMID: 36964088
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.03.019

Abstract

With the rapid development of human lunar exploration projects, the lunar base establishment and resource utilization are on the way, and hence it is urgent and significant to reasonably predict engineering properties of the lunar regolith, which remains to be unclear due to limited lunar samples currently accessible for geotechnical tests. In this contribution, we aim to address this outstanding challenge from the perspective of granular material mechanics. To this end, the 3D multi-aspect geometrical characteristics and mechanical properties of Chang'e-5 lunar samples are for the first time evaluated with a series of non-destructive microscopic tests. Based on the measured particle surface roughness and Young's modulus, the interparticle friction coefficients of lunar regolith particles are well predicted through an experimental fitting approach using previously published data on terrestrial geomaterials or engineering materials. Then the residual friction angle of the lunar regolith under low confining pressure is predicted as 53° to 56° according to the particle overall regularity and interparticle friction coefficients of Chang'e-5 lunar samples. The presented results provide a novel cross-scale method to predict engineering properties of the lunar regolith from particle scale information to serve for the future lunar surface engineering construction.

Keywords: Chang’e-5 lunar samples; Cross-scale prediction; Geometry; Mechanics; Residual friction angle; Tribology.