Regolith

[SEMINAR] - Environments for Pneumatic Regolith Acquisition System by Siddharth Pandey

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• published: 20 Mar 2015
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Keeping in mind the enormous scientific benefits of returning Mars samples to Earth, efforts are undertaken to improve the performance of a Pneumatic Regolith Acquisition System. Positive pressure pneumatic conveying systems rely on complex layouts for particle transport and require efficient designs. For it to function with redundancy and without human interaction in extra-terrestrial environments, it becomes imminent to model gas-solid flow behaviour and put forth critical findings. These findings shall induce design adjustments that will improve gas- regolith mixing for efficient transport of the samples under Martian conditions. Critical areas to model the flow were singled out: presented here, is the “pneumatic injection- Martian Surface regolith zone” Effects of pneumatic injection velocity vectors upon regolith volume fraction distribution and subsequent transport within the system is studied within a cylindrical pipe with inlets for gas injection onto the exposed regolith surface area. Key gas nozzle design variations are modeled and tested for appreciation of captured regolith mass. Increasing nozzle injection angles are compared to swirl injected nozzles and regolith volume fraction distributions are studied in radial and axial planes. Effect of gas velocity on the regolith lift rates is studied and basic conclusions are drawn regarding the applicability of certain nozzle configurations. Challenges faced during modelling and future work to be carried out are listed. The CFD results are used to design and fabricate nozzle prototypes that are tested with two different regolith simulants and air for varying inlet pressures. The final sets of results attained are compared with the theoretical results and the set requirements are met. Key challenges faced and future work is laid out. Siddharth Pandey is a PhD student at University of New South Wales at Canberra, Australia. His work is on Understanding Thermal Convection on Martian Surface to aid Design of a Mars bound Rover. Previously, he was an Education Associate at NASA Ames Research Center. He worked on investigating Fluidized Granular Flows in reduced gravity to aid design of Pneumatic Sample Acquisition Systems. He also worked with the Space Biosciences Division to design and develop Microgravity Bioscience Payload for research conducted on board the International Space Station. He holds a Master’s degree in Space Systems Engineering from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands and a Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Amity University, India. Wednesday, 4 February 2015