Hardware design for Regolith simulant cohesion tests

This is a work in progress, with updates to come. My best friend is an aerospace engineer working in the space industry in Europe, currently studying the lunar regolith (moon “dirt”) to better understand its behavior. He and I have been collaborating on the design of a 3D-printed, motor-driven apparatus that will allow for incremental testing of the cohesive properties of regolith and man-made simulants. I was invited to participate in this project for my love of citizen science and my interest in design challenges. We are quite excited, as our “sliding wall” design is a novel, simplified improvement to previous “guillotine” style machines used for similar tests.

The apparatus is being 3D printed and the tests are to be run through the end of 2018.