QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR COMPARING SIMULANT MATERIALS THROUGH FIGURES OF

MERIT. Doug Rickman'. Hans Hoelzer 2' Kathy Fourroux 3' 4* s+Charles Owens , Carole McLemore , John Pikes 6.

1Marshall Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville,

AL 35805 doug.rickman@nasa._ov, 2Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, A1 35805 hans.hoelzer@the.co_m__,

3Teledyne Brown Engineering, Huntsville, A1 35805, kathv.fourroux@tbe.com. 4Teledyne Brown Enganeering,

Huntsville, A1 35805 charles.e.owens@nasa._ov, 5NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812

carole.a.mclemore@nasa._ov. 6NASA, MarshallSpaceFlightCenteriohn.fikes@nasa.gov, Huntsville. AL35812

*Corresponding Author. +Point of contact for additional information.

Introduction: The 1989 workshop report entitled

Workshop on Production and Uses of Simulated Lunar

Materials [1] and the Lunar Regolith Simulant Materi-

als: Recommendations for Standardization, Produc-

tion, and Usage, NASA Technical Publication [2] bothidentified and reinforced a need for a set of standards

and requirements for the production and usage of the

Lunar simulant materials. As NASA prepares to return

to the Moon, and set out to Mars a set of early re-

qarrements [3] have been developed for simulant mate-rials and the initial methods to produce and measurethose simulants have been defined. Addressed in the

requirements document are: 1) a method for evaluating

the quality of any simniant of a regolith, 2) the mini-

mum characteristics for simulants of Lunar regolith,

and 3) a method to produce simulants needed forNASA's Exploration mission. As an extension of the

requirements document a method to evaluate new and

current simulants has been rigorously defined through

the mathematics of Figures of Merit (FoM).A single FoM is conceptually an algorithm defin-

ing a single characteristic of a simulant I4] and prt)-

vides a clear comparison of that characteristic for boththe simulant and a reference material. Included as an

intrinsic part of the algorithm is a minimum acceptableperformance for the characteristic of interest. The algo-

rithms for the FoM are also explicitly keyed to a rec-ommended method to make the simulunts.

Benefits for this approach; 1) permit multiple ma-terials to be used as standards or reference; 2) allow

multiple simulants to be compared in a standardizedmanner; 3) allows simulants to be standardized to a

definition based on measurement protocols and not

restricted to a physical reference material; 4) new

batches of simulants or multiple providers of simulantscan be readily compared, and 5) simulant requirements

are permitted to evolve as knowledge or needs change.Intended Users of the FoM: The scientific and

engineering communities are the primary two intendedusers of simulant materials and the data provided by

the Figures of Merit.

Utilization of the simulant by the science commu-

nity will be in small quantities (kilo_'ams vs. metric

tons in most eases3 in a laboratory or specialized pilotfacility with the intent of developing or improving a

process (e.g. oxygen or metals extraction) and may

only require discrete amounts of simulant. Expectations

are that the FoMs for these simulants will have higher

values and tighter tolerances banding together to re-

quire more closely controlled simulant production

techniques. This in turn reflects on the additional qual-ity control aspects of how the simulant materials were

collected, processed, and blended.

Potential simulant providers may use offsite ana-

lylical techniques to verify the simulant to the FoMs

applied. "Offsite" implies that statistically relevantsamples have been taken from the simulant components

individually and the simulanl after mixing, and ana-

lyzed in a laboratory setting to verify the quality of the

product. Tighter production tolerances or secondary

processing are expected to drive higher dollar/kg coststo the end user.

Utilization of the simulant by the engineering

community will be in larger quantities (metric tons)necessary m develop large-scale processes for Lunar or

Martian production facilities and construction. Exam-

pies of engineering uses include developing drills and

excavation equipment along with handling and hauling

mass quantities of regolith. Processes developed for

Lunar or Martian industrial applications must be robuslenough to handle small amounts of contamination in-

herent in the processing of large quantities of rocks and

minerals on Earth. Many of these contaminants will be

introduced during Lunar or Martian processing as well.Expectations are that the FoMs for these simulants willhave lower values for some characteristics based on

their intended end use. Potential vendors may use msne

analytical techniques to verify quality of the simulant

during production. "Insite" implies that a continuous

sampling and analysis is occurring during die produc-tion run. Common methods of measurement utilized in

continuous industrial processing are laser diffraction

and automated viston systems. Automated analytic

techniques coupled with large quantity production are

expected to reduce the dollar/kg costs to the end user.

Establishing Requirements Through the Fig-

ures of Merit: Based on the work published in the

Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials: Recommendations

for Standardization, Production, and Usage, NASA

Technical Publication [2], four key characteristics of

QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR COMPARING SIMULANT MATERIALS THROUGH FIGURES OFMERIT Rickman, et al

the Lunar regolith have been initially selected for theSimulant Requirements Document. Those characteris-

tics are; composition, size. shape' and density. As

needs change new requirements and FoMs may beadded, deleted or modified. To demonstrate the link

between a Figure of Merit and requirements, the FoM

of "composition" is used as an example.The Figure of Merit termed "composition" defines

the geologic constituents of the simulam without refer-

ence to textural features, such as particle shape and

particle size. Composition includes the following

classes of constituents: fithic fra_zqents, mineral grains,

glasses and agglutinates. Conceptually, composition

addresses the chemical makeup of individual particles.

The Simulant Requirements Document specifies the

rock types, their chemical make up and which materials

may or may not be used to establish a simulant requir-

ing this type of Figure of Merit.Establishing a Reference Material: In normal

use a reference material would be defined as a regolith

core sample returned by an Apollo mission. However,

any material real or predicted may be used. includinganother simniant. The reference material is measured

and assigned values of 1 for all properties to be de-

scribed by the Figures of Merit. The simniant is meas-

ured for the same properties as the referenced materialand the differences are evaluated according to the algo-

rithms of the FoMs selected for comparison.

The usefulness of allowing a predicted material to

be the reference is that as mission planners evaluate

and select potential Lunar sites for exploration, existingand new simulants may be evaluated for potential ana-

logs for those sites through the Figures of Merit. If

simulants must be produced, manufacturers of such

materials now have a way to measure their product andselect the "best fit" of raw materials and processing

techniques.

Conclusions: Requirements and techniques have

been developed that allow the simulant provider tocompare their product to a standard reference material

through Figures of Merit. Standard reference material

may be physical material such as the Apollo core sam-pies or material properties predicted for any landing

site. The simniant provider is not restricted to provid-

ing a single "high fidelity" simulant, which may be

costly to produce. The provider can now develop

"lower fidelity" simniants for engineering applications

such as drilling and mobility applications.

References: [1] D. S. McKay, James D. Blacic,

Workshop on Production and Uses of Simulated Lunar

Materials, LPI Technical Report Number 91-01. [2]

Sibille L., Carpenter P., Schlagheck R.. and French R.

(2005) Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials: Recom-

mendations for Standardization, Production, and Us-

age, NASA Technical Publication NASA/TP-2006-

214605. [3] Marshall Space Flight Center, Lunar Re-golith Simulant Requirements, MSFC-RQMT-3503,

March 1, 2007. [4] A Quantitative Method For Evalu-ating Regolith Simulants", D. Rickman, H. Hoelzer, P.

Carpenter, L. Sibille, R. Howard, C. Owens, Space

Technology & Applications International Forum(STA/F-2007), University of New Mexico, Feb 2007.

Acknowledgements: The following individuals con-

tributed to the development of the Figures of Meritconcept by providing comment and review; Susan Ba-

tiste, University of Colorado, Boulder; Dale Boueher

NORCAT Inc.; John Fikes, Marshall Space Flight Cen-ter /NASA; Leslie Gertsch, University of Missouri,Rollin; Bob Gustafson, Orbitec; Rick Howard., Tele-

dyne Brown Engineering; Iohn Lindsay, Lunar and

Planetary Institute; Carole McLemore, Marshall Space

Flight Center/NASA; Greg Meeker, United States Geo-

logical Survey; Sarah Noble, Johnson Space Cen-ter/NASA: Chuck Owens, Teledyne Brown Engineer-

mg; Dr Alan Rawle, Malvern Instruments Inc.; Jim

Richard NORCAT Inc.; Doug Rickman, Marshall

Space Flight Center/NASA; Ian Ridley, United States

Geological Survey; Dung Stoeser, United States Geo-logical Survey; Ken Street, Glenn Research Center;

Susan Wentworth, ERC Inc., Engineering and Science

Contract Group; Dr. Allen Wilkerson, Glenn Research

Center; Steve Wilson, United States Geological Sur-

vey. Special thanks to Kathy Fourroux, TeledyneBrown Engineering and Hans Hoelzer, Teledyne

Brown Engineering for the their work in developing theFoM mathematics and the associated software.

Algorithms for the FoMs ­Some Preliminaries

Reference Material• Reference material refers to the desired composition, size,

shape or density of a material.

• The composition, size, shape or density of a reference materialusually mirrors that of an actual material but does not have to.- a reference material may be completely hypothetical

• As such a reference material may be used for specification of asimulant.

• A simulated material may also be compared to the referencematerial.- the simulated material should match to the degree specified. the

reference material

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