Ultrasonic Teeth for Lunar Bucket Excavation

Key Technical Challenges: Determining the criteria for a tooth geometry that is optimized for both lunar soil conditions and ultrasonic vibrations; as well as, reducing the risk of metal fatigue due to cyclic stresses.\nApproach/Research Plan: Vary the vibration amplitudes and angle of attack for several generic ultrasonic probes to determine key tooth parameters for low force soil penetration; Design Test Rig; Build Test Rig; Complete testing with cylindrical probe and blade probe; Have optimized, manufactured probe at GRC; and, Validate probe via replicated testing.\nDifferent/Complementary: This type of testing is unique in that no published source can be found to date to compare what academia or industry has done with ultrasonic probes in soil. \nNext Step: Integrate the optimized ultrasonic tooth design onto the GRC APEx excavation rig to compare force and power differences to testing ongoing with non-vibratory bucket teeth.\n\n

Goal: To investigate the feasibility of implementing ultrasonic, mechanical vibration into excavation bucket teeth as a method to facilitate low penetration force excavation. \nCapability Need/Knowledge Gap: Research into existing technologies for use in planetary excavation yielded six primary groups, which are as follows: blade tools, drilling tools, coring tools, reciprocation methods, vibratory methods, and percussive methods. There is an apparent gap in the use of vibratory blade tool technology for planetary excavation purposes \nState-of-the-Art/Knowledge: Vibratory blades (teeth) have a presence in the food industry. These blades are used to cut sticky or fragile foods because their low riction and low penetration forces do not deform the food items. Studies done on a variety of foodstuffs show that optimization of the ultrasonic vibratory tool system parameters such as frequency, amplitude, cutting velocity, cutting angle, etc. is material dependent.

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