Nieke Philipp, Kita Jaroslaw, Häming Marc, Moos Ralf
Department of Functional Materials, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
Department of Functional Materials, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany. functional.materials@un.
Materials (Basel). 2019 Feb 5;12(3):487. doi: 10.3390/ma12030487.
The Aerosol Deposition (AD, also known as gas kinetic spraying or vacuum deposition) method is a rather novel coating process to produce dense thick films directly from dry ceramic (or metal) powders on a variety of substrates without any heat treatment. Because of the similarity of the up to now used powders and lunar regolith, it is imaginable to use AD systems for future in situ resource utilization missions on the Moon planned by several space agencies. To test the feasibility of such an endeavor, the processability of lunar mare simulant EAC-1 by the AD method has been examined in this study. Three regolith films with an area of 25 × 10 mm², and thicknesses between 2.50 µm and 5.36 µm have been deposited on steel substrates using a standard AD setup. Deposited films have been investigated by Laser Scanning Microscopy (LSM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the roughness and Vickers hardness of the deposited films and the underlying substrates have been measured. It has been shown that dense consolidated films of regolith simulant can be produced within minutes by AD. The deposited films show a higher roughness and, on average, a higher hardness than the steel substrates. Since on the Moon, naturally available regolith powders are abundant and very dry, and since the required process vacuum is available, AD appears to be a very promising method for producing dense coatings in future Moon exploration and utilization missions.
气溶胶沉积（AD，也称为气动力喷涂或真空沉积）法是一种相当新颖的涂层工艺，可直接在各种基材上由干燥的陶瓷（或金属）粉末制备致密厚膜，无需任何热处理。由于目前使用的粉末与月球风化层相似，可以想象在几个空间机构计划的未来月球原位资源利用任务中使用AD系统。为了测试这种尝试的可行性，本研究考察了AD法对月球海模拟物EAC-1的加工性能。使用标准AD装置在钢基材上沉积了3个面积为25×10 mm²、厚度在2.50 µm至5.36 µm之间的风化层薄膜。通过激光扫描显微镜（LSM）和扫描电子显微镜（SEM）对沉积薄膜进行了研究。此外，还测量了沉积薄膜和下层基材的粗糙度和维氏硬度。结果表明，通过AD法可以在几分钟内制备出致密的风化层模拟物固结薄膜。沉积薄膜的粗糙度高于钢基材，平均硬度也高于钢基材。由于在月球上，天然存在的风化层粉末丰富且非常干燥，并且所需的工艺真空条件也具备，因此AD似乎是未来月球探测和利用任务中制备致密涂层的一种非常有前景的方法。
