3D Printed Sulfur-Regolith Concrete Performance Evaluation for Waterless Extraterrestrial Robotic Construction (2024-06)¶

By leveraging the capabilities of construction 3D printing, building structures in harsh extraterrestrial environments is conceivable. Sulfur concrete is a waterless construction material that offers great potential to replace Portland cement concrete (PCC) in extraterrestrial construction. The shape stability of 3D printed Martian sulfur-regolith concrete (SRC) was found to benefit from a lower substrate layer temperature. However, this comes at the cost of flexural strength, resulting in up to 53% strength loss. The printed SRC specimens demonstrated a significantly faster strength development rate (gaining about 85% of the ultimate strength after only 12 h) compared to the printed PCC. The printed SRC specimens also outperformed the PCC specimens in vacuum conditions at higher temperatures. Furthermore, modifying the SRC materials with Dicyclopentadiene resulted in up to 44% strength increase and minimized the sublimation rate of the printed specimens in vacuum, especially at an elevated temperature.