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Microwave Assisted Rock Breakage

With the new advancements in space technology and also involvement of private sectors in space programs, space mining became an attractive subject either in In-Situ Recourse Utilization (ISRU) on the moon or mineral extraction from an asteroid. One can imagine that excavation and breakage technique that will be used will mainly be affected by the terrestrial methods which has been tested, tried and proved reliable. Drilling rocks is the first stage in order to extract the resources. It mainly relies on the mass of the drill and the reactive force that comes from the gravity. On the moon or an asteroid, where the gravitational force is one sixth or negligible, the drilling performance would not be equivalent to that on the earth. 

Microwave Assisted Rock Breakage 

 

COMSOL software along with its RF module used to model micro-cracks formation inside a rock when it is exposed to microwave. The application of this method could be in Space Mining, Drilling, and Tunnelling.

3D simulation of a rock block inside of the cavity in front of the horn antenna.

Electric filed in a 60cm*60cm*60cm cavity

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