Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2508.00894

Additive Manufacturing of PEEK/Lunar Regolith Composites for Sustainable Lunar Manufacturing

Mohammad Azami·Pierre-Lucas Aubin-Fournier·Mehdi Hojjati·Krzysztof Skonieczny
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

As humanity advances toward long-term lunar presence under NASA's Artemis program, the development of lunar-based manufacturing and construction (LBMC) capabilities has become increasingly critical. The high cost of transporting materials from Earth makes in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) essential, with lunar regolith serving as a promising local feedstock. Additive manufacturing (AM) offers a compelling platform for LBMC due to its geometric flexibility, material efficiency, and capacity for on-demand, site-specific production. This study investigates material extrusion (MEX) AM of polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) composites containing 10 to 50 wt% lunar regolith simulant (LRS). PEEK and LMS-1D powders were melt-compounded via twin-screw extrusion, printed using a high-temperature chamber, and annealed at 300 degrees C. The samples were characterized through density measurements, thermal analysis, tensile testing, and microstructural and elemental mapping. All filaments exhibited densities above 96%, though as-printed porosity increased from less than 1% in neat PEEK to 7.5% at 50 wt% LRS due to elevated melt viscosity. Regolith incorporation enhanced crystallinity (17.4 to 20.5%) and elastic modulus (by 6-41%), while reducing delamination and warping, which improved dimensional accuracy and print success rates. Tensile strength declined gradually from 107 MPa to 90 MPa up to 40 wt% LRS, then dropped sharply to approximately 70 MPa at 50 wt%. Annealing improved density and stiffness for composites containing up to 30 wt% LRS, with marginal benefit at higher contents. Microstructural and elemental analyses confirmed a continuous PEEK matrix with uniformly dispersed regolith particles. This work establishes processing windows and trade-offs for regolith-rich PEEK composites, supporting ISRU-enabled AM of future lunar infrastructure.

Explore related subjects

astro-ph.IMastro-ph.EPcond-mat.mtrl-sci

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Mohammad Azami, Pierre-Lucas Aubin-Fournier, Mehdi Hojjati, Krzysztof Skonieczny. 2025-07-27. Additive Manufacturing of PEEK/Lunar Regolith Composites for Sustainable Lunar Manufacturing. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00894

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

The EDD Radio Astronomy Backend Framework

Modern digital radio astronomy receivers produce increasingly wide-bandwidth, high bit-rate data streams that necessitate the development of flexible, scalable, and maintainable backend processing and recording systems. Historically, such backend instrumentation has been tightly coupled to telescope observing modes, limiting reuse between observatories and science cases. We present the Effelsberg Direct Digitisation (EDD) backend framework, a software-defined architecture for constructing real-time radio astronomy backends on commodity off-the-shelf computing infrastructure. We describe its design, implementation, supported observing modes, and operational deployments. EDD separates a common core framework from plugin-provided observing capabilities. The core provides orchestration, telescope interfaces, pipeline lifecycle management, monitoring, and deployment tooling, while plugins implement processing pipelines for specific observing modes. The framework is designed to support both single-dish and interferometric instruments through site-specific configuration and plugin selection. EDD currently supports spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry, pulsar timing and searching, baseband recording, very long baseline interferometry, correlation, and beamforming. Operational deployments include the Effelsberg 100-m telescope, the SKA-MPI prototype dish, the Thai National Radio Telescope, and the ARGOS interferometric prototype array. By separating common services, observing-mode plugins, and site-specific configuration, it allows backend capabilities to be deployed across heterogeneous telescope environments and provides a community resource for broadband radio astronomy instrumentation.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2026

Bayesian Superiority in On/Off analysis

We present a detailed comparison of Bayesian criteria with three non-informative priors - flat, Jeffreys, and scale-invariant - for testing a signal against an unknown background and compare them with the classical frequentist Li-Ma approach in the On/Off problem. We perform Monte Carlo simulations for various background levels and evaluate the Li-Ma and Bayesian criteria by their Type I error rates. We then simulate a nonzero signal and compare the criteria in terms of Type II error rates. We find that the Bayesian criterion with the Jeffreys prior yields lower Type I and Type II error rates than the Li-Ma criterion. In addition, we show that the Bayesian criteria are more robust than the Li-Ma criterion when the background distribution is overdispersed relative to the Poisson distribution.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2026

An RFSoC-based Backend and Timing System for the Balloon-borne Very Long Baseline Interferometry Experiment

We present the design and performance characterization of the digital backend and precision-timing system for the Balloon-borne Very Long Baseline Interferometry Experiment (BVEX), a pathfinder for high-frequency stratospheric VLBI at 22 GHz. The backend uses one of the four 14-bit analog-to-digital converter inputs on an AMD-Xilinx RFSoC 4x2. Although the converters support sampling rates up to 5 GSPS, the flight configuration digitizes the 2-4 GHz intermediate frequency at 4.096 GSPS. CASPER firmware provides both a high-resolution spectrometer for pointing and receiver verification, and a VLBI acquisition chain with two-bit requantization that records at a rate of about 8.2 Gbps. The timestamped data packets are sent over 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) to a 16 TB NVMe array in a storage computer that draws approximately 70-80 W. The timing chain uses a Rakon oven-controlled crystal oscillator as a timing reference while a time-interval counter measures its drift relative to a GPS reference with approximately 60 ps resolution. This is the first deployment of an RFSoC-based VLBI backend and precision-timing system on a stratospheric balloon. Ground tests validated the backend, spectrometer, and timing chain. The August 2025 CSA STRATOS flight ended before reaching the target float altitude because of a balloon failure, and as a result no science observations were obtained. For the planned 2027 reflight, we are developing a conduction-cooled data storage computer with 24 TB of NVMe capacity and a direct data path from the 100 GbE interface to the NVMe array.

astro-ph.IM↗