New Mars Forums

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Thanks for the find as we have talked about a few different  and binders to make blocks, bricks and walls from these materials. Some work better than others while some have a smelly draw back...

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,175

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Building On The Moon Or Mars? You’ll Need Extraterrestrial Cement For That
https://spaceref.com/newspace-and-tech/ … -for-that/

A crushed geopolymer cube made from simulated lunar topsoil, inset shows magnification of lunar topsoil particles which have been activated and reacted to form the geopolymer binder.

Sustained space exploration will require infrastructure that doesn’t currently exist: buildings, housing, rocket landing pads.

So, where do you turn for construction materials when they are too big to fit in your carry-on and there’s no Home Depot in outer space?

“If we’re going to live and work on another planet like Mars or the moon, we need to make concrete. But we can’t take bags of concrete with us — we need to use local resources,” said Norman Wagner, Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware.

Researchers are exploring ways to use clay-like topsoil materials from the moon or Mars as the basis for extraterrestrial cement. To succeed will require a binder to glue the extraterrestrial starting materials together through chemistry. One requirement for this out-of-this-world construction material is that it must be durable enough for the vertical launch pads needed to protect man-made rockets from swirling rocks, dust and other debris during liftoff or landing. Most conventional construction materials, such as ordinary cement, are not suitable under space conditions.

UD’s Wagner and colleagues are working on this problem and successfully converted simulated lunar and Martian soils into geopolymer cement, which is considered a good substitute for conventional cement. The research team also created a framework to compare different types of geopolymer cements and their characteristics and reported the results in Advances in Space Research. The work was highlighted recently in Advances in Engineering.

Geopolymer cement

Geopolymers are inorganic polymers formed from aluminosilicate minerals found in common clays everywhere from Newark, Delaware’s White Clay Creek to Africa. When mixed with a solvent that has a high pH, such as sodium silicate, the clay can be dissolved, freeing the aluminum and silicon inside to react with other materials and form new structures — like cement.

Soils on the moon and Mars contain common clays, too.

another discussion
Domed habitats... - ...size, materials, and more
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=253

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,175

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Another link relevant to Space Cement used to build houses on Mars and the Moon

Building on the moon and Mars? You'll need extraterrestrial cement for that
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 161034.htm
Researchers are exploring ways to use clay-like topsoil materials from the moon or Mars as the basis for extraterrestrial cement that could be used by astronauts to create building materials for life in outer space. Scientists have converted simulated lunar and Martian soils into geopolymer cement, which is considered a good substitute for conventional cement.

NASA Rover is Snapping Sun Rays and Amazing View of Sunsets on Mars

previous news

Sulfate minerals composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Reaches Long-Awaited Salty Region
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s … lty-region
Salty minerals such as magnesium sulfate Epsom salt is one kind, calcium sulfate, including gypsum, and sodium chloride ordinary table salt

Also a highly sought fertilizer for wheat

First-of-its-kind 3D-printed home blends concrete, wood
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/0 … crete-wood

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

The issue for Mars or moon is that we not only need to find the geology of the raw elements to be mined but then we need a processing plant to facilitate grinding them and then making use of heat to bring them into the correct formular to make the needed building material not to mention quite a bit of water to cause it to set up.

RobertDyck did create a post that contained how to make Portland cement.

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,175

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

I should link RobertDyck's writing because he has so much info
http://canada.marssociety.org/winnipeg
https://web.archive.org/web/20010206053 … index.html

The Sample-Return Mission is using spacecraft mission to collect and return samples and back to to Earth for analysis, we have samples of Moon rock, the comets and the asteroids. NASA's Apollo took back 382 kilograms 842 pounds from the Moon, the Soviets also returned samples using robots. Japan plans MMX a sample return from Phobos and China plans more sample returns on the Moon of Earth with Chang'e 6 and India also said it planned sample returns from the Moon an ISRO Chandrayaan-6 mission. Earth Lab tools to study such samples are far more advanced and diverse on our Planet Earth than those inside spacecraft.

The big reveal: What's ahead in returning samples from Mars?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-reveal-w … 32057.html

Tianwen-3: China’s Mars sample return mission
https://www.planetary.org/articles/tian … rn-mission

Roman concrete was made from a mixture of volcanic ash with lime, research showed that the incorporation of lime clasts allowed the concrete to self-repair cracks. Another considered in structures is Quakes and Meteorite Impacts this will happen far more often on the Moon, a structure over ground and underground 'survives' if it does not collapse and can be safely evacuated and there is no loss of air pressure, seismometer on NASA’s InSight Lander now show magnitude 5 Earthquake on Mars, Wood framed structures are shown to be far more flexible that concrete structures so there might be a mix of structure. We have been building 'quake proof' Concrete houses on Earth that dance and sway or absorb energy, wood is sometimes used in structures at fault zones as it will not damage as easily by shaking it. Cement, Sand and Aggregate. (M) stands for mix and the number  compressive strength in MPa N/m2 after days of curing. Waterless types of concrete can be produced from sulfur and regolith, magnesium oxychloride cement (MOC), is a non hydraulic cement, the chemistry of Sorel cement and MgO and MgCl2 can be produced from magnesite.  Construction Technology Laboratories study on earthquake-resistant home, buildings, revealed that even a lightly reinforced concrete shear wall has over six times the racking load resistance as framed wall construction. Caesarea harbour was concrete underwater with Rome concrete, an example of underwater Roman concrete technology on a large scale. Structures on Mars might be given extra support with tress, glass fibers, bamboo, plastic 3-d polymer prints or reinforcing steel.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-03-08 06:53:58)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,175

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Construction tech some kind of Robotic Spider on the Moon that makes a Concrete brick maybe printed or a mixture of cement and aggregate.

“Super Mason” brick-making robot by HUST will be onboard Chang’e 8 to the moon. First lunar brick will be made in-situ as building block for the lunar base.

https://twitter.com/CNSAWatcher/status/ … 8416804864

it looks very like Robot designs in some space simulation video games

Sources is in Chinese language

online translator -

'
The National Digital Construction Technology Innovation Center has carried out three research works around extraterrestrial construction'

perhaps also relevant for the Moon Dust or Mars Dust Storm thread
https://m.weibo.cn/status/4889385072593950

'
The spacecraft landing on the lunar surface has a tail flame, which is easy to splash moon dust, and it is difficult to sink in a vacuum environment, and a lunar landing pad is needed to avoid the generation of moon dust. The design of the landing pad tried several schemes such as vertical interlock and horizontal interlock, and experts found that the thickness of the landing pad is not as thick as possible, and more than 8 cm will affect the structural performance.'

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-04-13 07:02:29)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,832

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Seems we will have a slightly different product for Mars...
One of the most commonly used materials in the world could be getting a huge upgrade

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,175

Re: Mars Colony Cement & Concrete

Some even thought of 'blood' a better idea is potato starch as a binder

StarCrete: A starch-based biocomposite for off-world construction
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/ … -0390/html

Starch (amylum) is an abundant plant-based carbohydrate and is the main source of calories in the human diet. In addition to food, starch is also employed industrially as an adhesive/binder for various applications – including paper, cardboard, and textile manufacture . Starch has been extensively investigated as a binder for plant fibre-based biocomposite materials ; however, relatively poor mechanical properties (compressive strengths <2.5 MPa) and moisture sensitivity limit their applicability. Recently, corn starch was employed as a binder for inorganic aggregates such as sand and limestone powder . Termed CoRncrete, these materials displayed impressive compressive strengths as high as 30 MPa; however, moisture sensitivity remained a key weakness for practical Earth-based applications .

Having extremely limited amounts of water, the issue of moisture sensitivity is irrelevant for the Lunar and Martian environments – meaning a CoRncrete-like material could be well-suited for extraterrestrial construction. Furthermore, since starch is the primary constituent of staple foods such as rice, potatoes, and maize (corn), any sustained off-world habitat will likely have the capability to produce starch as food for inhabitants. To mitigate risks such as crop failure or poor yields, a surplus of starch will likely be produced under ordinary conditions: the use of surplus starch as a binder for regolith would therefore avoid the need for additional construction material fabrication equipment and supporting infrastructure. This integration of the food- and construction-material-production systems would therefore reduce launch mass, energy use, and technology development costs, whilst also improving system robustness and flexibility.