Iron and Steel on Mars

Calliban · 2022-08-25 10:54:19

From Robert's materials page.

'Smelting iron
Carbon monoxide combines with iron oxides in the ore to produce metallic iron. This is the basic chemical reaction in the blast furnace; it has the equation: Fe2O3 + 3CO → 3CO2 + 2Fe. The usual way of producing steel has been to produce pig iron first in a blast furnace, then convert it into steel in a Bassemer converter. The Bassemer literally burns off impurities by injecting large quantities of oxygen. The direct method produces steel from ore in a single step, and produces steel or iron of much higher purity than pig iron. In this process iron ore and coke are mixed in a revolving kiln and heated to a temperature of about 950°C (1740°F). Carbon monoxide is given off from the heated coke just as in the blast furnace and reduces the oxides of the ore to metallic iron. We don't have coal to make coke on Mars, but we don't have an oxygen atmosphere either. Carbon monoxide could be introduced to ore directly. Since heat wouldn't be produced by burning coke, heat would have to be introduced electrically. This can be done by either lowering an electrode close to the steel to produce an arc, or using a heating coil. An electrode requires electrically conductive ore, and the electrode erodes, so a coil is preferred. The Martian furnace would then combine the features of the Direct method with an Electric-Furnace.

Once steel is made, it must be worked to refine its crystalline structure. In hot rolling, the bright-red hot ingot is passed between a series of pairs of metal rollers that squeeze it to the desired size and shape. Rollers used to produce I-beams are grooved to give the required shape.'
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One thing we will have on Mars is hydrogen, which will be produced via electrolysis of water. This will be used to produce breathable air and propellant. If hydrogen is passed through a bed of crushed iron ore at a temperature about 800°C, it will reduce iron ore to metallic iron at the grain surface. By crushing the residue and seperating the iron using an electromagnet, we have a crude but electrically conductive iron powder than can be fed into the electric arc furnace.

The reduction furnace could recycle some its iron powder to mix in with the crushed ore. By doing this, an induction coil can be used to heat the ore to the 800°C temperature needed to initiate the reaction.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-08-25 11:04:36)

tahanson43206 · 2022-08-25 11:27:14

For Calliban re #51

SearchTerm:Blast furnace on Mars
SearchTerm:Furnace blast on Mars

(th)

Void · 2022-08-25 12:04:49

It is very good to read these materials. I am not in competition, rather I approach from another angle, I am more proficient about methods to concentrate ores and things like that. I never really worked in a steel plant but have some awareness. I am very happy to read the works of the posters here.

Done.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-02 05:53:25

Mars colonisation made ‘cheaper and efficient’ as 'valuable' metals to be made from soil

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ … r-valuable

SpaceNut · 2022-09-02 13:07:09

The regolith of mars is full of Iron and while you have the sun at just 43% it's still a long way to making use of these to make steel. You need lots more for equipment to make it happen.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-09-22 06:01:18

Mars as a Base for Asteroid Exploration and Mining
https://cfa.harvard.edu/news/mars-base- … and-mining

How to classify rocks during quarrying
https://www.mining.com/how-to-classify- … quarrying/

tahanson43206 · 2022-09-22 06:13:41

For Mars_B4_Moon re #56

SearchTerm:rocks classification of during quarrying
SearchTerm:classification of rocks during quarrying

This seems like a perfect task for a robot with neural network trained capabilities. This is pattern matching in the optical wavelengths. Such a robot could be equipped with the ability to "see" in a wider set of wavelengths. The rovers currently on Mars collect data about rocks, but send it back to Earth for study by humans. The next generation would perform the classification on site, and send the report back to humans.

There is a science fiction story about a robot that performed this kind of work on Mars. Due to a combination of circumstances, it achieved self-awareness.

To the extent that mass is a factor in classification of rocks, such a robot could be equipped with sensors sufficient to estimate mass based upon volume and gravitational attraction on Mars, or perhaps by waving the rock back and forth to measure momentum after acceleration.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-04 01:01:55

Redesign and rebuild of the Pan Pacific Copper flash smelting furnace
https://www.hatch.com/en/About-Us/Publi … ng-furnace

A Brief History of the American Steel Industry
https://www.nationalmaterial.com/brief- … -industry/

Early colonists had 2 primary goals: shelter and food. They needed to build homes, plant crops, and hunt. In order to facilitate these tasks, iron tools were needed. Things like hammers, knives, saws, axes, nails, hoes, bullets, and horseshoes. Iron products were in demand, but it wasn’t until the 19th century, when technological advances drove down the cost and increased the quality of the product, that steel manufacturing became a dominant industry. “With the abundant iron ore deposits around Lake Superior, the rich coal veins of Pennsylvania, and the easy access to cheap water transportation routes on the Great Lakes, the Midwest became the center of American heavy industry,” business and financial historian John Steele Gordon writes in his Importance of Steel exposition. “In the years after the Civil War, the American steel industry grew with astonishing speed as the nation’s economy expanded to become the largest in the world. Between 1880 and the turn of the century, American steel production increased from 1.25 million tons to more than 10 million tons. By 1910, America was producing more than 24 million tons, by far the greatest of any country.”

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-09 14:53:30

Regeneration of Iron Oxide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm0sIN-KhUo

Making The Iron Fuel Technology A Reality

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-18 08:26:47

and if in a future we got Exotic sciences, Fringe Physics topics solved like 'Cold Fusion.'

How easy it would be have new production factory, to start smelting the Irons of Mars

'History of ironworks revealed'
https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/1 … -revealed/

The Blast Furnace Animation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/v … nace.shtml

Daily Pig Iron Output Declined as More Blast Furnaces Were Overhauled than Restarted
https://news.metal.com/newscontent/1019 … Restarted/

Murray offloads Apollo Metals to ThyssenKrupp
https://www.heraldscotland.com/default_ … ssenkrupp/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-26 19:02:09

Demand for Ore and Metals on Earth but how to build Mars industry without shipping stuff from Earth?

Global copper smelting edges higher in Sept, satellite data shows
https://www.reuters.com/article/metals- … SKBN2R0185

Vale’s Iron Ore Production in Q3 Recovers by 21% QoQ
https://www.steelguru.com/coal-and-mini … y-21-qoq-2

Fortescue Metals first-quarter iron ore shipments rise over 4%
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodi … 022-10-26/

old 1999 article

"If you look at the soil composition of Mars, the one thing that really strikes you is that it's 5 to 14 percent iron oxide," said Dr. Peter Curreri, a materials scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "It's almost ore-grade material

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/s … 03mar99_1/

SpaceNut · 2022-10-26 19:45:41

First starting with small crude quantity and quality for the ore that is processed and with each new batch we will make use of what is made to make equipment while raising the bar of these such that we will recycle the equipment to make that next generation of product.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-21 08:38:14

it seems Mars and the Moon and other bodies in the past had flowing Lava, elements, copper, chromium, iron, and nickel become concentrated at the bottom. Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system; other smaller volcanoes on Mars near the height of Earth's Mount Everest. As magma is hot, many elements are free to move, elements bind with each other in cooling to form chemical compounds or minerals. On Earth the solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light (Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach 3,500 °C (6,330 °F), and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel, make hydrogen fuel or nanomaterials. The largest solar furnace is at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France, opened in 1970. The first modern solar furnace is believed to have been built in France in 1949 by Professor Félix Trombe. The device, the Mont-Louis Solar Furnace is still in place at Mont-Louis. The Pyrenees were chosen as the site because the area experiences clear skies up to 300 days a year.
https://archive.fo/iJEm

Moon and Mars superoxides for oxygen farming
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Sp … en_farming
The dusty faces of the Moon and Mars conceal unseen hazards for future explorers. Areas of highly oxidising material could be sufficiently reactive that they would produce chemical burns on astronauts’ unprotected skin or lungs. Taking inspiration from a pioneering search for Martian life, a Greek team is developing a device to detect these ‘reactive oxygen species’ – as well as harvest sufficient oxygen from them to keep astronauts breathing indefinitely.

Mars ferric oxide map
https://sci.esa.int/web/mars-express/-/ … -oxide-map

Materials that could bring life to Mars
https://spacenews.com/op-ed-materials-t … e-to-mars/
With the right materials, a future for humanity on the Red Planet isn’t just science fiction

In terms of building materials, Mars’ settlers won’t be short of ceramics thanks to the ubiquity of clay-like materials in Martian soil. There are also plentiful mineral resources including iron, titanium, nickel, aluminum, sulfur, chlorine and calcium.
Silicon dioxide is the most common material on Mars, according to measurements taken by the Viking space probes, and is also a basic ingredient of glass. It is likely that glass products, including fiberglass, and structures could be constructed on Mars in much the same way as they are on Earth.
Regolith is another readily available Martian construction material. The pulverized, dusty rock — that’s mostly silicon dioxide and ferric oxide, with a fair amount of aluminum oxide, calcium oxide and sulfur oxide — has been deposited over Mars by asteroid collisions over billions of years. Researchers think that regolith could be a viable alternative for concrete.
Regolith samples have yet to be brought back to Earth. Instead, JSC Mars-1a, a regolith simulant, is a very close replica of Martian soil. It is 43.48 % silicon dioxide and 16.08% iron oxide by weight, compared with actual Martian regolith which, on average, is 45.41% silicon dioxide and 16.73% iron oxide. JSC Mars-1a has been used to explore the possibility of the use of regolith in 3D printing. Could NASA one day send robots to 3D print regolith layer-by-layer, and gradually build the cities imagined by Musk?
But how strong would Martian concrete actually be? Mars has a lot of sulfur in its soil, and molten sulfur is used to bind some concrete on Earth. Tests at Northwestern University near Chicago have mixed melted sulfur with JSC Mars-1a in a ratio of 1:3, the same recipe used for sulfur concrete on Earth. Tests of the simulated Martian concrete’s strength under compression, bending and splitting found it to be much weaker compared with concrete made using Earth sand. This was attributed to the Martian sand’s porosity. The Earth composition’s compression strength was about 30 megapascals, similar to that of cement-based concrete.
Further experiments with a 1:1 sulfur-to-sand mix compressed the mixture, broke down grains and drove out air bubbles. This resulted in a strength of 60 megapascals, which is twice as strong as concrete. Sulfur-based concrete also has quick-setting advantages, offering more immediate strength that could be advantageous for 3D printing applications.
Aside from the cement used, modular underground living will likely be the surest way to protect Mars’ settlers from cosmic radiation and intense cold. Such digging could also expose water, ice and other resources under the surface for ISRU.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-02 09:12:15

NASA Rover Encounters Spectacular Metal Meteorite on Mars
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-rover … te-on-mars

MSL Curiosity is going about its business exploring Mars. The high-tech rover is currently exploring the sulphate-bearing unit on Mt. Sharp, the central peak in Mars' Gale Crater. Serendipity placed a metal meteorite in its path.

Mars could grow stuff, the food can be fuel or it can be printed product
on Mars you will have metals
you can do plastic, build polymer and print

So what will be planned?

Regions that show 5 to 15 percent iron oxide can offer almost ore-grade material. Perhaps before men there will be machine, AI and Cyborg, Putting power and a manufacturing device on the Moon or Mars, than coating of paint less rust or corrosion as the Mars' thin atmosphere has virtually no free oxygen. The methane CH4 chemical mix yields carbon monoxide reacts with rust to produce carbon dioxide and free iron.

Maybe not all Steel but construction mixes, plastic polymer and wooden bamboo organic types used for building?

Mining Mars? Where's the Ore?

https://web.archive.org/web/20130215070 … s-gold.htm

Mars' large volcanoes mountains themselves might also prove fruitful, says SETI planetary scientist Adrian Brown.

"We never know what we're going to find around the volcanic edifices," said Brown. "But they are covered with dust" and not ideal places to land rovers for exploration. So it might be a while before we ever find out.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-03-02 09:16:34)

Calliban · 2024-02-01 16:43:32

I have just ordered a compact disc containing 39 scanned antique books on architectural ironworks. I am hoping it will provide some inspiration for what we might construct on Mars. The Victorians produced some truly amazing architectural treasures from cast and wrought iron.

In many ways, Mars is the natural environment to develop cast iron structures on a huge scale. It is a place where living space must be created within either a tensile structure, or as a framed structure using the weight of a rock and dirt layer to counter balance internal pressure. The second approach is by far the cheapest. Cast iron is a good framing material. It is stronger in compression than basalt and has tensile strength as well. It has a lower melting point than mild steel, making it easier to work with. The dry and arid Martian environment reduces issues with corrosion. Finally, iron is ubiquitous in the soil of Mars. Crude iron can be produced by blowing hydrogen gas through iron rich regolith which is heated above 800°C. The reduced iron particles can be removed by magnet following crushing.

On Mars, it is my hope that we can develop this art form far beyond what was possible for Victorian engineers. We want living spaces that are beautiful and expansive.

A list of books on the CD:

American park and poddock fence made by American Steel & Wire Company 1914

Anchor Post Iron Works: formerly Anchor Post Company 1906

Architectural aluminum products 1948

Architectural Drawings, including designs for grill work, spindles, and newel posts] volume 2 - 1865

Architectural iron work : a practical work for iron workers, architects, and engineers, and all whose trade, profession, or business connects them with architectural iron work, showing the organization and mechanical and financial management of a foundry and shops for the manufacture of iron work for buildings, with specifications of iron work, useful tables, and valuable suggestions for the successful conduct of the business 1876

Architectural wrought-iron, ancient and modern; a compilation of examples from various sources of German, Swiss, Italian, French, English and American iron-work from mediaeval times down to the present day 1888

Artistic steel ceilings 1926

Building hardware and plumbers specialties 1923

Champion Iron Fence Co. - Illustrated supplement catalogue 1884

Cyclone ornamnetal fence and gates; catalog no. 7 - 1910

Designs for ironwork c.1690

Hartman MFG & Co. - Ornamental and field fencing 1888

Home interiors, trim ideas with chromtrim metal mouldings 1920

Howard & Morse, manufacturers of steel, iron, brass and copper wire cloth c.1889

Illustrated catalogue of ornamental iron work for lawns, gardens, parks, cemeteries 1871

Illustrated catalogue, Pascal Iron Works, Philadelphia, Tasker Iron Works, New Castle, Del. 1875

Illustrations of iron architecture, made by the Architectural Iron Works of the city of New York 1865

Iron fence and entrance gates catalogue 53-A c.1900

Jackson windows of bronze: catalog no. 21 - 1925

John McLean:Machinist;Manufacturer and Dealer in Cemetery Supplies 1893

Manual of the Bouton Foundry Company, 1887

Miniature catalogue, no. 12 - Champion Iron Fence Co. c.1890

North Western Expanded Metal Co. - a complete line 1926

Ornamental iron : reproductions from photographs of ornamental iron and art metal work 1894

Ornamental iron work; stairs, fire-escapes, marquises, gates, railings, grilles, fences 1915

Ornamental wrought iron picket and combination iron and woven wire lawn fence and gates, woven wire field fence, both square and diamond mesh 1910

Patios, stairways and iron-lace balconies of old New Orleans 1938

Penco Metal Ceilings and Sidewalls 1933

Pocket companion of useful information and tables pertaining to the use of cast and wrought iron work, illustrating various designs of architectural iron work; for engineers, architects, and builders 1887

Portfolio of original designs of ornamental iron work c.1867

Queen City Wire Works, manufacturers of wire work and wire cloth of every description, Sanford Bros, props c.1890

Samuel J. Creswell Iron Works - Illustrated Catalogue 1907

Scranton Iron Fence and Manufacturing Co. c.1890

Store fronts, our specialties: cast iron, steel, galvanized iron, woodwork, wrought iron 1904

Van Dorn equipment in the Cleveland Public Library 1925

Venetian iron work : easy to make c.1895

Wayne iron and chain link fences and gates 1936

Wire products, ornamental, iron and bronze 1933

Wire, iron, brass and bronze work, window guards and railings 1924

Last edited by Calliban (2024-02-01 16:47:48)

kbd512 · 2024-02-03 01:06:04

We can use Austempered Ductile Iron instead of forged steel. Machining Iron castings will be easier than making and machining complex forging dies and using multiple heat treatments. VIM / VAR steel will be easier to produce since the atmosphere is almost a vacuum. We could justify the weight and expense of rolling a small variety of plate and sheet thicknesses, but that's about it. The major complication is that the finished product must survive in mildly cryogenic temperatures and potentially corrosive regolith. It'll be a lot easier to keep cast Iron hot in the mold until the time comes for tempering, implement the rapid quench austempering demands, perhaps using molten salt as the quenching agent since it can be held at the correct temperature.

We'll need weldable steel plate for pressure vessels, cast Iron piping to carry liquids, sheet steel for internal structure / furniture / vehicles / machine parts / cutting tools. If something needs to be really strong, then we can austemper it. If not, then we use ordinary ductile Iron.

Rather than locating and processing large quantities of Nickel and Chromium to make stainless steels, high-Manganese Iron or steel also exhibits no crystalline phase transformation as temperatures drop to cryogenic levels, thus the alloy does not become excessively brittle. The benefit is that the alloy is simpler to make in comparison to stainless, it is harder and much more wear resistant than stainless, and has much higher tensile strength. Here on Earth, high-Manganese cast Iron or steel is used to chew up hard rock, such as granite, to crush scrap steel, and it used to be a staple of bank vault manufacturers because it was so tough and difficult to cut with common cutting tools.

To deal with corrosive liquids such as the high salinity brines, rather than using precious Nickel or Chromium best reserved for super alloys, we can use Silicon-based CVD coatings.

Void · 2024-02-03 12:02:48

(th) sort of summoned me a bit. There is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore_resources_on_Mars
Quote:

Dark sand dunes are common on the surface of Mars. Their dark tone is due to the volcanic rock called basalt. The basalt dunes are believed to contain the minerals chromite, magnetite, and ilmenite.[54] Since the wind has gathered them together, they do not even have to be mined, merely scooped up.[55] These minerals could supply future colonists with chromium, iron, and titanium.

I never worked with the creation of Iron or Steel, only with processing ores. But obviously a great deal of effort is put into just getting the ores ready to put in the furnaces. Size matters, air needs to be able to flow though the stuff.

Dune materials are already chewed, and perhaps not ready for a normal process. We used to beneficiate ore using magnetic separation and then gluing them into small pellets with clay. And then baking those in a kiln like pottery. Then they can be shipped on trains or boats.

But on a smaller scale perhaps you might do the process at the location of the dune. You might attempt a magnetic separation, to discard the grains with less metal.

It is possible that you might want to reduce the grains with heat and Hydrogen first to cause the iron in them to be more magnetic, but that could be costly.

Rather than to ship the bulk materials I suggest trying some of the newer processes.
European process, (Derived from a British process that used Carbon): https://indianexpress.com/article/techn … the%20moon. Quote:

European Space Agency chooses team to make oxygen on the moon
The ability to extract oxygen and other useable materials from lunar regolith will be a game-changer for lunar exploration.
By: Tech Desk
New Delhi | March 15, 2022 11:54 IST

Or the Blue Origin Device: https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-al … nar-future
Quote:

Our approach, Blue Alchemist, can scale indefinitely, eliminating power as a constraint anywhere on the Moon.

Quote:

Our process purifies silicon to more than 99.999%. This level of purity is required to make efficient solar cells. While typical silicon purification methods on Earth use large amounts of toxic and explosive chemicals, our process uses just sunlight and the silicon from our reactor.

Quote:

Our novel process fabricates solar cells, including cover glass, using only products from our reactor. These long-lived cells resist degradation caused by radiation on the Moon. Here we show silicon melting as well as the thin-layer deposition that makes solar cells.

So, between the two, you might get useful things including Oxygen. and I expect metals, although the metals may need additional processes.

And with the dune materials you might also make cast Basalt products such as Calliban has suggested.

Where we had mining pits you had to remove a thick deposit of overburden which covered the ores. Then you have to drill and blast. Then you needed electric shovels which had thick cables that had to be moved periodically. The shovels would then load the ore on very large trucks which I don't think will work on Mars without a hydrocarbon fuel.

Hematite may then go to a crushing facility. The one I worked at had a jaw crusher and then a cone crusher. Sometimes Hematite needs to be beneficiated by some kind of a flotation process involving water and chemicals. I never worked much with that. Then to be shipped to the blast furnaces elsewhere.

Taconite would go to a Coarse Crusher, then a couple more levels of crushers. Then into Rod mills. Then a magnetic separation and the tailings from that would go to be disposed of. Then the balling mills. More magnetic separation. The tailings from that would go to a sort of settling pond with a rotary rake where they would use a flocculent chemical to make the fine tailings settle out than that would go to a tailings pond for permanent disposal. The beneficiated ore would travel in a slurry of water, to machines that would dewater it and make a sort of cake out of it. Then bentonite clay from out of state was used to paste it into little balls. Then those would go through a rotary kiln which was very hot and inclined so that they would roll downward. Then those little pottery balls with enhanced iron content would go to be dumped into trains after cooling quite a bit. Then the blast furnaces by train/boat.

Lots of conveyor belts and water and slurry pipelines.

So, I don't think you can do that on Mars very well.

On Earth lots of good ore bodies are probably covered in water or ice. On Mars, lots of good ore bodies are likely covered by ice.

So, I suggest that unless you fall into a very good ore body, you look at the sand dunes. You could start with small batches and perhaps over time invent methods that are specifically suitable for Mars. Your process might yield many good products like Oxygen and Glass and we hope useful metals, and I suppose solar panels apparently, if we believe Blue Origin, (And I do).

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-02-03 12:38:17)

Calliban · 2024-02-03 17:46:38

Two excellent posts in succession, which advance this topic a great deal. The first from KBD512, discussing iron metallurgy. The second from Void on the topic of ore mining, benefication and processing into refinable forms.

kbd512 · 2024-02-03 22:31:59

Most of what we require is low cost and low energy input welded steel pressure vessels and piping capable of holding people, crops for food, water, gases, and cryogenic liquids for energy storage or propulsion. We also need the ability to fabricate repair parts for construction and fabrication machinery or vehicles, everything from bolts to drill bits. Drastic simplification is the key to making this endeavor sustainable over the long run. We probably can't afford to have a part for this and a part for that. Standardization is a hard requirement from the word "go", so as many different uses as we can get from a single type or grade of fastener is a good thing, even if some fasteners or gaskets are more robustly made than is strictly necessary. This applies equally to vehicles and structures. Perhaps one structure doesn't absolutely require 1/4in thick steel plate, but if making 3/8in thick plate means entirely new production processes or interruption of steady production runs to make a special thickness steel plate, then that sort of inefficiency needs to be factored into the decision regarding the general utility of having dozens of different types of steel plate for specialty use cases. The special 3/8in thick plate optimizes the function of a part for one use case, but what about all the other cases?

The Martian surface environment, specifically a near-vacuum and mildly cryogenic temperatures at night, imposes severe practical limitations on what materials are suitable, thus what machinery we should send to facilitate construction efforts. Generally speaking, only high-Manganese or high-Nickel / high-Chromium "stainless" alloys are suitable structural steels. Certain Aluminum-Copper or Titanium alloys may also be acceptable for service in cryogenic environments, but the energy input into those metals is too high for them to replace steel. Titanium typically requires a triple-VAR refinement process after initial processing. I can justify a Titanium pressure vessel aboard a spacecraft. Using Titanium for a stationary Argon storage tank for welding is a non-starter, which is why it's not used for that application here on Earth.

We require:
1. Iron-Manganese alloys for pressure vessels and general purpose piping
2. Iron-Nickel-Chromium alloys for high temperatures or corrosive chemical processing (Sulfuric acid is a "must-have") or food preparation (stainless steel is pervasive in food prep and medicine)
3. Titanium alloys for biomedical implants or spacecraft pressure vessels or specialty fasteners and forgings
4. Manufacture of plate, sheet, seamless tubing, castings, and fasteners such as bolts / studs / nuts / washers
5. Silicon-based CVD coatings to protect ordinary piping from high-salinity brines
6. Titanium-oxide ceramic coatings to reflect light (white paint) or add a hard and corrosion resistant surface for tooling (Titanium-Nitride coated drill bits and cutting tools)
7. Diamond-like ceramic coatings for machining high-Manganese steel
8. Inspection equipment to evaluate the quality of base metals produced for adherence to specifications, weld integrity, and air-tight / water-tight integrity tests of assembled parts fabricated from some combination of welding, casting, and mechanical fastening

Drilling of water wells and water processing, mining of ores that is mostly limited to collection of materials found on the surface, metals smelting and shaping, along with critical manufacturing quality control will become all-important "must-haves" very quickly, in order to sustain a colonization effort. Collection and reprocessing of wastes is also important. There won't be much of an equipment junkyard on Mars. Everything will need to be repaired and put back into service, or repurposed. The sooner the machinery to drive this process has been delivered from Earth, the faster the colony becomes a self-sustaining endeavor not subject to the political whims of people who control the purse strings. Relying upon Earth to deliver more equipment and materials is ultimately a bad strategy, as American colonists discovered. Since this was problematic when the British were only a month's sail away, imagine how well this will work when the only possible resupply will arrive 2 years later. Self-sufficiency is a must. Energy and metal production play pivotal roles. American colonists used wood from the forests for energy / warmth / shelter. Martian colonists have Iron and Carbon galore, so steel will be their go-to material for the same.

tahanson43206 · 2024-02-04 07:22:09

CSPAN runs a series about American History on Saturday nights ...

In the lineup for 2024/02/03, they reran a film by U.S. Steel Corporation about how steel was made in 1938.

The makers at the time had no idea of the global conflagration that was about to unfold, but the ability of the US to make steel on a massive scake, as shown in the video, was a major factor in the outcome.

It appears there may be two episodes, or perhaps there is just one recorded twice by CSPAN, but in any case, they are easy for anyone to access.

Showing results for c span history 1938 us steel film
[Steel, Man's Servant] - 1938 | C-SPAN.org
www.c-span.org › video › steel-mans-servant-1938
Sep 1, 2018 · This U.S. Steel Corporation film details steel production, from work in the mines and mills in ...
Duration: 37:21
Posted: Sep 1, 2018
[Steel, Man's Servant] | C-SPAN.org
www.c-span.org › video › steel-mans-servant
Sep 2, 2018 · This U.S. Steel Corporation film details steel production, from work in the mines and mills in ...
Duration: 37:45
Posted: Sep 2, 2018
"Steel: Man's Servant" - 1938 | By American History TV - Facebook
"Steel: Man's Servant" - 1938 on Reel America - WATCH: Saturday at 10pm ET & Sunday at 4pm ET on C-SPAN3. This color film by U.S. Steel Corporation was an

The 1938 setting shows much of the technology in the US at the time, including automobiles, trains, ships, bridges, buildings and numerous other examples of applications of steel.

A Mars equivalent is unlikely, because (I expect) robots would be doing many of the jobs shown as being carried out by humans of the time.

kbd512's comments about the variety of kinds of products might be worth keeping in mind if a member of the forum, or a forum reader, watches the film.

Girders, pipes, wire and flat stock are shown in production and final form. Each product requires dedicated equipment and procedures.

(th)

Calliban · 2024-02-07 07:53:21

Excellent posts from multiple contributors here. For structures internal to a habitat that will never see the cold of a Martian night, low-alloy structural steels or ductile iron may still have a place. But anything we build outside needs to be cold resistant and manganese steels are the lowest cost option. It does help that these steels are tough and useful for wear surfaces as well.

I remember a while back watching a programme about the truckers that delivered supplies to towns and cities in Siberia. It gets so cold that trucks frequently break their chassis. The vehicles suffer brittle fracture that literally snaps the truck in two. The same problem plagued liberty ships innthe North Atlantic. It wasn't well understood in the 1940s.

In the US, there was a bridge collapse back in the 90s that led to fatalities. The bridge was a suspension bridge, with suspension provided by steel tendons that were braced against an eye on the tower. The braces were carbon steel. The eye was cast iron. There were two contributers to the accident. Vibration and slight movements, lead to work hardening and stress crack growth in the steel brace that interfaced with the eye. Under warm conditions, the steel remained ductile and the cracks did not experience rapid growth. But then came an unusually cold day. The steel got cold and progressively more brittle and the critical crack length at which brittle fracture occurs, declined until one of the cracks was long enough and the static stress was sufficient to allow rapid growth. It shot through the brace in a microsecond, collapsing the bridge. A lot was learned from that accident.

The next stage of our present discussion concerns how to use Martian resources to produce high manganese steels. I suspect this will be difficult due to lack of information. We know that Martian regolith is relatively rich in manganese compared to typical Earth soils. What we don't know is whether nature has concentrated these resources into ore bodies. If we are lucky, the iron rich sand dunes on Mars will already contain substantial manganese oxide mixed with the iron oxide.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-02-07 07:56:50)

Void · 2024-02-07 08:03:54

You appear to be correct about it being on Mars: https://www.manganese.org/manganese-oxi … 0to%20form.
Quote:

MANGANESE OXIDES CAN FORM EASILY IN MARS-LIKE CONDITIONS WITHOUT OXYGEN
In 2014, NASA’s Mars rovers discovered manganese oxides in rocks in the Gale and Endeavor craters on Mars. This led some scientists to think that Mars’s atmosphere may have had more oxygen billions of years ago.
Scientists said that the minerals probably needed a lot of water and oxygen to form.

I spoke to a metallurgist at one time, about our ore. He said that one of the values of it was what it did not contain. It did not have substances to alloy it, so then they were free to add what they wanted to get the qualities they wanted.

Just a little thing I remember.

Done

Last edited by Void (2024-02-07 08:08:17)

kbd512 · 2024-02-07 20:47:52

Calliban,

As far as low-tech solutions are concerned, Mangalloy is ye olde alloy steel, the first purposefully repeatably created alloy of Iron and another metal (Manganese) to impart material properties not possible with Iron and Carbon alone. It was invented by Sir Robert Hadfield in the early 1880s. Mangalloy was used in mining for rock crushing, rail car wheels, track links for tanks and construction equipment, saw blades, and bank safes or vaults. It's only recently been used for LNG transport ships, trucks, and terminal storage tanks, but high-Manganese steel has more heritage than any other alloy of Iron except Carbon. It's also used to remove impurities (Sulfur, Phosphorus, etc) from Iron. It can be welded and formed by bending. Cutting and grinding? Not so much. You really need a plasma cutter. We have those now, so it's not much of an issue.

Calliban · 2024-02-08 09:27:20

Kbd512, that is interesting. Below is the wiki article on mangalloy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalloy

I have a book 'Steels: Metallurgy and Applications' which provides a bit more information on these steels in relation to super high-strength wear resistant rails installed at railway points. The alloy used is an austenitic manganese steel with composition: 0.75-0.9%C, 0.2-0.4% Si, 13-14% Mn. The reference states: 'The metallurgy of this material is complex, but has a very high resistance to wear because of its high rate of work hardening when subject to applied stresses or abrasion. This special grade of steel is made in electric arc furnaces, but is rlled to rail in the same type of mill employed for pearlitic grades.'

The mechanical properties are listed as:
YS: 355-386MPa, TS: 818-973MPa, Elongation: 40-60.

The difference between YS and TS is due to work hardening as the steel approaches its yield point.

We could use this material to make everything from vehicle chassis to bandsaw blades, drill bits and dies. The main problem appears to be the poor workability under cold conditions due to extreme work hardening. This is not relieved by anealing. We could fabricate I-beam sections by hot rolling steel strip and then fillet welding the strips together. For cutting and drilling tools, the act of sharpening with a silicon carbide stone would work harden the cutting edge. The classic way of forming more complex shapes would be by drop forging hot ingots of the steel into dies. Fine machining would then presumably be carried out in a CNC machine deploying a CO2 laser or plasma beam.

The problem with die casting is that this requires that we have dies on hand for those specific components. That is fine if we intend mass production, but it is awkward if we only need to produce one such item on an occasional basis. I'm not sure there is an easy way around that. We might attempt some kind of casting technique. Small pellets of the material could heated to melting point in an induction furnace under an argon atmosphere. It would then be cast into ceramic molds made from a mixture of sand and vermiculite clays. The molds could be 3D printed. I don't know if this would work or not.

Calliban · 2024-02-08 10:26:16

One tool that we will need a lot of on Mars is jackhammer bits.
https://www.toolsadvisor.org/what-steel … s-made-of/

Drilling into rock is a good way of creating living space on Mars. But the sort of boring machines that are typically used for tunnelling on Earth are much too heavy to ship to Mars. More likely, we will be using hydraulic jackhammers mounted on catapillars. The composition of jackhammer bits depends upon what they are being used to drill through. For concrete and soft rock, high carbon steel is often used. But for harder rocks, chrome molybdenum vanadium steels are prefered. Manganese steel would also work well in this application. We will go through enough of these chisels to justify investment in drop forge dies and a pneumatic press.

Other high use components will be track segments for catapillars and rovers. These need to hard wearing and cold resistant. If we can use common track segments for multiple vehicles, the segments can be die cast.

Bolt couplings would be difficult to make from manganese steel because the threads require precise machining. I think these would need to be low-alloy, low-carbon steel. The brittle fracture problem can be managed by vacuum purging the molten steel prior to drawing. This eliminates hydrogen and other dissolved gases, which reduces the potential for brittle fracture along grain boundaries. Further quality control can be achieved by x-raying finished components to detect cracks and inclusions that could lead to stress concentrations. Aside from that, we would replace bolts and couplings according to a maintenance schedule, removing these components before stress cracks approach critical lengths.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-02-08 10:35:41)

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