Summary

This paper investigates laser remelting of regolith simulants under vacuum to reduce porosity for enhanced lunar resource utilization. It reports porosity reduction from 75% to 19% and surface roughness reduction of 77%. This paper investigates laser remelting of regolith simulants under vacuum to reduce porosity. It reports porosity reduction from 75% to 19% using a 940 nm/980 nm diode laser with 100-150 W power and 1 mm/s scanning speed. Surface roughness decreases by 77%, and hardness remains unchanged. The study links porosity to gas entrapment, sublimation, residual moisture, and keyhole collapse. Theoretical models explain pore movement under different atmospheres. 60 mm in diameter) was placed. Fig. 2. Experimental setup consisting of vacuum chamber, processing head and powder bed The simulant was provided by the TU Berlin and was a mixture of 10% highland simulant (TUBS-T) and 90% mare simulant (TUBS-M), which is expected to be the 496 T. Eismann et al. / Procedia CIRP 124 (2024) 494-498 composition of the lunar south pole. More information about the simulants is given in [10]. Approximately 1500 C are required to melt all constituents of the simulant. The particles in the

Methods and applications