Investigation of Sulfur Concrete Mixes for Mars Infrastructure
Investigation of Sulfur Concrete Mixes for Mars Infrastructure
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Date
2019-12-03
Authors
Brinegar, Joshua
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University Honors College Middle Tennessee State University
Abstract
Space is a vast and enticing place known as the final frontier. As the world
progresses through time, it becomes more interested in the frontier of space. Much
research is conducted on different facets of life in space, and this research project’s intent
is to make habitats on Mars more plausible. By creating a Martian soil simulant using
commercially available materials and then comparing how that simulant performs in a
series of tests that another Martian soil simulant was put through, this project would find
if it was able to create and utilize an accurate facsimile of Martian soil. The Martian soil
simulant facsimile was combined with sulfur in this project to create a sulfur concrete
that was then placed through testing to determine the compression strength of the created
sulfur concrete. The sulfur and Martian soil simulant concrete is then recast and tested
again to determine the strength gain. This process is similar to a project that utilized a
Martian soil simulant that was contracted by NASA for use in Martian research. The
results of this project were compared to the results of that project, and it was observed
that the strength of the sulfur concrete that utilized the Martian soil simulant made from
commercially available materials failed under lower compressive loads. One possible
reason for this is that the facsimile did not contain all the oxides present in the original
Martian soil simulant, due in part to lack of accessibility of the materials and budgetary
limitations. This result meant that this project’s Martian soil simulant had a lower
compressive strength in a sulfur concrete mixture than that of a sulfur concrete that
utilized a control Martian soil simulant. The Martian soil simulant created in this research did not produce statistically significant similar results of a NASA contracted Martian soil
simulant due to the research deviations that are noted within this document.
Description
Keywords
Basic and Applied Science,
Mars,
simulant,
Sulfur,
concrete