University of Nebraska–Lincoln

College of Engineering

Preparing Innovative Leaders for Tomorrow

UNL Microgravity: Team Fast


Project: Lunar soil is much different from terrestrial soil, consisting of a large percentage of very fine particles. Lunar soil also contains very irregular and jagged particles formed from the sintering together of broked grains during micro-meteorite bombardment. NASA has soil simulants that replicate the unique characteristics of lunar soil. It is known that the flow of lunar soil and lunar simulant soil is very different from terrestrial soil. Flow characteristics of lunar soil in the 1/6 gravity of the moon is needed for engineering of lunar outpost facilities.

The experiment would involve the design of a transparent closed container containing a "V" shaped hopper with an opening. The rate of flow through the hopper provides information about the flow characteristics of the soil. Several different soils should be tested in 1-g and in 1/6 g with the "V" hopper. Soils will include, JSC-1A lunar simulant, NU-LHT, and sand.




Saturday, March 14, 2009
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More pictures

Here are a few more pictures of our equipment from Friday.

This is me (Brett) with Nick standing next to our two hopper assemblies. I'm on the right. One assembly has an 18 mm opening and the other has a 25 mm opening.











Here is another picture of the two assemblies. The electric solenoid which opens the hopper doors is activated by the switch seen in front of the assembly on the left.










Here's a shot of our workspace in an old lab in SEC. We were pretty fortunate to get access to this room, as space is a fought after commodity in the engineering building. The other microgravity team will be sharing this space with us, so it might get a little crowded once they start assembling their project.

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Brett Schlueter


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