Surface micro-texturing of advanced bearing materials for lunar dust mitigation

This proposal addresses subtopic Z13.02 Dust Tolerant Mechanisms and specifically the listed interest in long life dust-tolerant bearings, protective materials, and tribological surfaces. NASA is interested in long-term operation in the Moon, Mars and other space bodies such as asteroids, and comets. The Artemis program will land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, followed by manned missions to Mars. The Moon is covered by large amounts of dust particles, called regolith, which could cause serious problems for tribological components on the Moon, which makes dust as the number one concern in returning to the Moon. In addition to dust issues, the temperature has a large variation between day and night, from cryogenic temperatures of -147deg;C to upwards of 100deg;C. Therefore, the effect of temperature should also be taken into account in combination with abrasive dust. The reliable operation of moving parts and tribological components (e.g., bearings, gears, sealings, etc.) in the Moon environment is a key for successful accomplishment of future NASA missions. Therefore, selection and design of new lubrication and protection are imperative for each application. Tribological experiments are therefore necessary to simulate relevant environments so as to mitigate mission risk. This proposal offers unique solutions for these extreme conditions: ATSP coating sliding against ATSP coatings have shown low coefficients of friction and ldquo;zero wearrdquo; from -196deg;C to 300deg;C. This excellent tribological performance leads us to introduce ATSP-based coatings for the abrasive conditions and wide thermal demands of the Moon. We will investigate the tribological performance of ATSP-based composites under conditions in combination with temperature effect and abrasive dust. The tribo-pairs will be micro-textured/flat polymer pins sliding on steel, and textured/flat polymers pin on polymer coating, thereby allowing selection of an optimized tribo-pair.