The Aerosol Deposition (AD, also known as gas kinetic spraying or vacuum deposition) method is a rather novel coating process to produce dense thick films directly from dry ceramic (or metal) powders on a variety of substrates without any heat treatment. Because of the similarity of the up to now used powders and lunar regolith, it is imaginable to use AD systems for future in situ resource utilization missions on the Moon planned by several space agencies. To test the feasibility of such an endeavor, the processability of lunar mare simulant EAC-1 by the AD method has been examined in this study. Three regolith films with an area of 25 × 10 mm2, and thicknesses between 2.50 µm and 5.36 µm have been deposited on steel substrates using a standard AD setup. Deposited films have been investigated by Laser Scanning Microscopy (LSM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the roughness and Vickers hardness of the deposited films and the underlying substrates have been measured. It has been shown that dense consolidated films of regolith simulant can be produced within minutes by AD. The deposited films show a higher roughness and, on average, a higher hardness than the steel substrates. Since on the Moon, naturally available regolith powders are abundant and very dry, and since the required process vacuum is available, AD appears to be a very promising method for producing dense coatings in future Moon exploration and utilization missions.
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机译：气溶胶沉积（AD，也称为气体动力喷涂或真空沉积）方法是一种相当新颖的涂覆工艺，无需任何热处理即可直接从干燥的陶瓷（或金属）粉末在各种基材上生产致密的厚膜。由于迄今使用的粉末和月球重石的相似性，可以想象将AD系统用于由多个航天局计划在月球上进行的未来原位资源利用任务。为了测试这种努力的可行性，在本研究中检查了AD方法对月相模拟EAC-1的可加工性。使用标准AD装置将三块Regolith膜（面积为25×10 mm 2 ）沉积在钢基板上，厚度为2.50 µm至5.36 µm。已经通过激光扫描显微镜（LSM）和扫描电子显微镜（SEM）研究了沉积的膜。此外，已经测量了沉积膜和下面的基底的粗糙度和维氏硬度。已经表明，AD可以在数分钟内产生致密的硬脂状模拟物的固结膜。所沉积的膜显示出比钢基材更高的粗糙度和平均更高的硬度。由于在月球上，天然可用的粉煤灰粉含量丰富且非常干燥，并且由于可以提供所需的工艺真空，因此AD似乎是在未来的月球勘探和利用任务中生产致密涂层的非常有前途的方法。
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