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.     

Modelling and analysis of metal flowing behaviors in constraining ring rolling of tapered ring with thin wall and three high ribs

Tapered ring with thin wall and three high ribs(TRTWTHR), showing complicated geometry(wall thickness is less than 4 mm and rib height exceeds 20 mm), is extensively utilized to fabricate the critical structural parts of aerospace equipment such as spacecraft cabin, rocket body and fuel tank because of light weight and high carrying capacity. How to fabricate TRTWTHR with high performance is a critical problem that aerospace area needs to solve. In this work, constraining ring rolling(CRR) techn...