To advance space colonization, team explores 3D printing in microgravity

Analysis from West Virginia College college students and college into how 3D printing works in a weightless setting goals to assist long-term exploration and habitation on spaceships, the moon or Mars.

Prolonged missions in outer space require the manufacture of essential supplies and gear onsite, fairly than transporting these gadgets from Earth. Members of the Microgravity Analysis Workforce mentioned they consider 3D printing is the way in which to make that occur.

The workforce’s current experiments centered on how a weightless microgravity setting impacts 3D printing utilizing titania foam, a fabric with potential purposes starting from UV blocking to water purification. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces revealed their findings.

“A spacecraft cannot carry infinite sources, so you must keep and recycle what you have got and 3D printing allows that,” mentioned lead creator Jacob Cordonier, a doctoral scholar in mechanical and aerospace engineering on the WVU Benjamin M. Statler School of Engineering and Mineral Assets. “You’ll be able to print solely what you want, decreasing waste. Our research checked out whether or not a 3D-printed titanium dioxide foam may shield towards ultraviolet radiation in outer space and purify water.”

“The analysis additionally permits us to see gravity’s function in how the froth comes out of the 3D printer nozzle and spreads onto a substrate. We have seen variations within the filament form when printed in microgravity in comparison with Earth gravity. And by altering extra variables within the printing course of, equivalent to writing velocity and extrusion stress, we’re capable of paint a clearer picture of how all these parameters work together to tune the form of the filament.”

Cordonier’s co-authors embrace present and former undergraduate college students Kyleigh Anderson, Ronan Butts, Ross O’Hara, Renee Garneau and Nathanael Wimer. Additionally contributing to the paper have been John Kuhlman, professor emeritus, and Konstantinos Sierros, affiliate professor and affiliate chair for analysis within the Division of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Sierros has overseen the Microgravity Analysis Workforce’s titania foam research since 2016. The work now occurs in his WVU labs however initially required taking a experience on a Boeing 727. There, college students printed traces of froth onto glass slides throughout 20-second durations of weightlessness when the jet was on the high of its parabolic flight path.

“Transporting even a kilogram of fabric in space is pricey and storage is restricted, so we’re trying into what known as ‘in-situ useful resource utilization,'” Sierros mentioned. “We all know the moon comprises deposits of minerals similar to the titanium dioxide used to make our foam, so the thought is you do not have to move gear from right here to space as a result of we will mine these sources on the moon and print the gear that is crucial for a mission.”

Crucial gear contains shields towards ultraviolet light, which poses a risk to astronauts, electronics and different space property.

“On Earth, our ambiance blocks a major a part of UV mild—although not all of it, which is why we get sunburned,” Cordonier mentioned. “In space or on the moon, there’s nothing to mitigate it in addition to your spacesuit or no matter coating is in your spacecraft or habitat.”

To measure titania foam’s effectiveness at blocking UV waves, “we’d shine mild starting from the ultraviolet wavelengths as much as the seen mild spectrum,” he defined. “We measured how a lot mild was getting via the titania foam movie we had printed, how a lot obtained mirrored again and the way a lot was absorbed by the pattern. We confirmed the movie blocks virtually all of the UV mild hitting the pattern and little or no seen mild will get via. Even at solely 200 microns thick, our materials is efficient at blocking UV radiation.”

Cordonier mentioned the froth additionally demonstrated photocatalytic properties, that means that it will possibly use mild to advertise chemical reactions that may do issues like purify air or water.

Workforce member Butts, an undergraduate from Wheeling, led experiments involved angle testing to research how modifications in temperature affected the froth’s floor vitality. Butts referred to as the analysis “a distinct sort of problem that college students do not at all times get to expertise,” and mentioned he particularly valued the engagement element.

“Our workforce will get to do a number of outreach with younger college students just like the Scouts via the Benefit Badge College at WVU. We get to indicate them what we do right here as a method to say, ‘Hey, that is one thing you can do, too,'” Butts mentioned.

In line with Sierros, “We’re attempting to combine analysis into scholar careers at an early level. We have now a scholar subgroup that is purely {hardware} they usually make the 3D printers. We have now college students main supplies growth, automation, knowledge evaluation. The undergraduates who’ve been doing this work with the assist of two very aggressive NASA grants are taking part in the entire analysis course of. They’ve revealed peer-reviewed scientific articles and offered at conferences.”

Garneau, a scholar researcher from Winchester, Virginia, mentioned her dream is for his or her 3D printer—customized to be compact and automatic—to take a six-month journey to the Worldwide House Station. That might allow extra intensive monitoring of the printing process than was attainable throughout the 20-second freefalls.

“This was a tremendous expertise,” Garneau mentioned. “It was the primary time I participated in a analysis challenge that did not have predetermined outcomes like what I’ve skilled in research-based courses. It was actually rewarding to research the info and are available to conclusions that weren’t primarily based on mounted expectations.

“Our method will help lengthen space exploration, permitting astronauts to make use of sources they have already got obtainable to them with out necessitating a resupply mission.”