Abstract
A series of soil cutting tests was firstly carried out on the Earth on a ground composed of Tongji-1 lunar soil simulant (TJ-1 simulant) to experimentally investigate the effects of cutting depth, blade width, rake angle and blade arc angle on the excavation force. Then the tests were numerically simulated with the Finite Element Method (FEM), where a constant velocity was applied to the soil in contact with the blade, namely the soil cutting method or a rigid blade was generated and moved to cut the soil, namely the blade cutting method. The results show that the FEM simulation using the soil cutting method can provide excavation forces close to the experimental data when the rake angle is 0°, and well capture the effects of cutting depth, blade width and blade arc angle except the rake angle. The FEM simulation using the blade cutting method can capture the effect of rake angle while the predicted excavation forces are much larger than the experimental data. Nevertheless, both the methods cut the soil to a small displacement beyond which the analysis is unable to meet the convergence requirement.
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Acknowledgments
The research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China with Grant Nos. 52209127 and 51890911, the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui with Grant No.2208085QE177, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China with Grant No.JZ2021HGTA0154, all of which are sincerely appreciated.
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Jiang, M., Xi, B., Guo, Z. et al. FEM and Experimental Analysis of Lunar Soil Excavation Test. KSCE J Civ Eng 27, 3240–3254 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-023-0600-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-023-0600-4