Prediction of the temperature of a drill in drilling lunar rock simulant in a vacuum

Abstract

In this article, the temperature of a sampling drill in drilling lunar rock simulant in a high-vacuum environment was studied. The thermal problem was viewed as a 1-D transient heat transfer problem in a semi-infinite object. The simplified drill was modeled using heat conduction differential equation and a fast numerical calculation method is proposed on this basis, with time and the drill discretized. The model was modified to consider the effects of radiation, drill bit configuration, and non-constant heat source. A thermal analysis was conducted using ANSYS Workbench to determine the value of the equivalent correction coefficient proposed in this paper. Using fiber Bragg grating temperature measurement method, drilling experiments were conducted in a vacuum, and the results were compared to the model. The agreement between model and experiment was very good.