Regolith Dust and Radiation-Tolerant Bearing

A radiation-resistant and superhard material for dust-resistant mechanical bearing applications on the lunar surface will be tested and demonstrated under this project.nbsp; This highly incompressible ceramic material is able to be formed into intricate bearing geometries directly from powder by utilizing spark plasma sintering to create dense, hard, geometrically precise, and wear-resistant bearing surfaces.nbsp; This new material is more than 30% lighter than the chrome steel commonly used for bearings, and about 15% lighter than Nitinol, which NASA has been recently investigating for bearing applications.nbsp; A roller bearing using this new material that is tolerant of regolith dust will be designed and partially fabricated and tested.nbsp; Specimen coupons of the material will be characterized for tribology properties, coefficients of thermal expansion and friction, and wear resistance during temperature extremes from -240 C to 130 deg;C.nbsp; At the conclusion of the Phase II, a functioning roller bearing would have been tested in the simulated conditions and delivered to NASA for further evaluation.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;