Study On The Interaction Of Manual Facilities And Lunar Soil Simulant By Centrifuge Model Test

China's lunar probe program is very critical to the exploration of space resources, the maintenance of peace and enhancing overall national strength. The interaction of lunar soil and manual facilities exists in exploration of the lunar, such as the landing of lunar lander, the moving of lunar rover, in situ tests of lunar soil, sampling of lunar soil and the construction of lunar bases. The physical, mechanical and engineering properties of lunar soil have great impact on all these explorations. When above mentioned interaction problems are studied, lunar soil simulant is needed, which can simulate the main physical and mechanical properties of lunar soil. In addition, the different gravity effect on the engineering properties of lunar soil simulant can be studied.Volcanic ash in Jingyu, Jiling province is selected as primary material. Some physical and mechanical tests have been carried out to prepare the lunar soil simulant, such as chemical analysis, determination of specific gravity, grading analysis, the maximum/minimum void ratio, triaxial tests. The tests indicate that the average size and shear strength parameters of the ash that is crushed by ball mill and screened by 0.16mm are lower than that of lunar soil. The experiments also show that the ash that is crushed by Raymond mill and screened by 0.5mm can well simulate the main physical, mechanical properties of lunar soil. Finally, some conclusions can be obtained, the ash in Jingyu, Jiling province that is crushed by Raymond mill and screened by 0.5mm can be proximate materimals as lunar soil simulant.The gravity effect on the interaction of simplified manual facilities, including pushing plate system, pulling plate system, load board system, penetration system and impact system, and lunar soil simulant, are studied by geotechnical centrifuge model test.The tests indicate that gravity field has great impact on manual facilities of the same size. When the same force is performed on pushing plate, pulling plate and penetrometer, the displacements can be decrease with the increasing of the gravity. In other way, when the displacements of pushing plate, pulling plate and penetrometer are constant, the force needed is increasing with the increaseing of the gravity .But the increasing multiple of the force is different from that of the gravity. The forces when pushing plate is pushed out and the corresponding gravities have good linear correlation. Similarly, the forces when pulling plate is pulled up and the corresponding gravities also possess good linear correlation. When performed the same forces, the displacement of small penetrometer in 3g gravity field are about twice of the displacements of large penetrometer in 6g gravity field.Whether the size of load board and gravity field are the same or not, all deformation modulus of load board tests range from 5.1 to 5.4MPa. Load board tests also demonstrate that the scale factor of deformation modulus equals one in geotechnical centrifuge model test. In the same gravity field, the impact time of the large falling body is about twice of that of the small falling body. With the increasing of gravity, the impact time and the peak of acceleration increase.Conclusions in this paper can provide reference for problems of the interaction of lunar rovers and lunar soil simulant.