Pilbara Craton Soil as A Possible Lunar Soil Simulant for Civil Engineering Applications

Recent fast development in lunar exploration exposed a lack of lunar soil simulant (LSS) fit for civil engineering applications. Permanent human presence on the Moon will be associated with significant construction efforts. Adequate technologies and building materials have to be developed and tested prior to setting the actual building site on the Moon. Current LSSs were created for non-civil engineering purposes, thus they are very expensive and available in limited amounts. In the paper, the authors proved that Pilbara Craton soil is a suitable material for the creation of an affordable LSS for civil engineering applications. The main tool of the conducted study was principal component analysis (PCA).