Thermal Extraction of Volatiles from Lunar and Asteroid Regolith in Axisymmetric Crank–Nicolson Modeling

Abstract

A physics-based computer model has been developed to support the development of volatile extraction from the regolith of the Moon and asteroids. The model is based upon empirical data sets for extraterrestrial soils and simulants, including thermal conductivity of regolith and mixed composition ice, heat capacity of soil and mixed composition ice, hydrated mineral volatile release patterns, and sublimation of ice. A new thermal conductivity relationship is derived that generalizes the cases of regolith with varying temperature, soil porosity, and pore vapor pressure. Ice composition is based upon measurements of icy ejecta from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impact, and the results show that the thermal conductivity and heat capacity equations for water ice provide adequate accuracy at the present level of development. The heat diffusion equations are integrated with gas diffusion equations using multiple adaptive timesteps. The entire model is placed into a Crank–Nicolson framework where the finite-difference formalism was extended to two dimensions in axisymmetry. The one-dimensional version of the model successfully predicts heat transfer that matches lunar and asteroid data sets. The axisymmetric model has been used to study heat dissipation around lunar drills and water extraction in asteroid coring devices.