Influence of lunar regolith compressibility on sampling performance of thick wall spiral drills

A 2 m class robotic drill was sent to the Moon and successfully collected and returned regolith samples in late 2020 by China. It was a typical thick wall spiral drill (TWSD) with a hollow auger containing a complex coring system to retain subsurface regolith samples. Before the robotic drill was launched, a series of laboratory tests were carried out to investigate and predict the possible drilling loads it may encounter in the lunar environment. This work presents how the sampling performance of the TWSD is affected by the regolith compressibility. Experiments and analysis during the drilling and sampling process in a simulated lunar regolith environment were conducted. The compressibility of a typical lunar regolith simulant (LRS) was measured through uni-directional compression tests to study the relationship between its inner regolith stress and bulk density. A theoretical model was established to elucidate the cutting discharge behavior by auger flights based on the aforementioned relationship. Experiments were conducted with the LRS, and the results show that the sampling performance is greatly affected by the flux of the drilled cuttings into the spiral flight channels. This work helped in scheduling reasonable drilling parameters to promote the sampling performance of the robotic drill in the Chinese Chang'E 5 mission.     

三种钻头钻削CFRP的制孔损伤对比

采用二刃双锋角钻头、三刃双锋角钻头和圆弧形钻头在不同加工参数下钻削CFRP,对比分析了孔入出口质量(入口损伤、毛刺和出口撕裂),并采用毛刺存在角度来衡量毛刺的多少。结果表明:随着进给量的增大毛刺存在的角度(范围)α先减小后增大;综合考虑孔入口和出口质量(毛刺和撕裂因子),三刃双锋角钻头最适合钻CFRP。     

胶接修复对碳纤维复合材料层合板挠度的影响

为了研究胶接修复对碳纤维复合材料层合板弯曲挠度的影响，试验设置了阶梯搭接和斜面搭接两种搭接方式，通过三点弯曲实验和数字图像相关技术（DIC）来研究胶接接头的弯曲变形情况。结果表明，在相同搭接长度下，阶梯搭接试件的失效载荷和弯曲强度均低于斜面搭接试件；试件的弯曲挠度与强度和搭接长度有关，搭接长度越长，弯曲强度越高，而弯曲挠度越小。由此表明，搭接长度越长，胶接层合板的强度越高，但不利于层合板的柔性变形。