Understanding the bearing resistance of planetary regolith is essential to establish a long-term presence on the planets, e.g., extraterrestrial human habitat construction. Despite its importance, our understanding of the bearing resistance remains at best incomplete due to the dearth of data collected from the planetary surface missions as well as the limited amount of planetary soil samples available for the study. Moreover, it is hard to experimentally test the bearing resistance in a different gravity condition that can be obtained through parabolic flight, but which is expensive and can simulate a relatively short duration of different gravities. On the other hand, numerical studies using the discrete element method typically require high computational cost. This study hypothesizes a new approach to investigate the soil bearing resistance in a different gravity environment by simply scaling the particle density instead of reproducing the different gravity conditions. To this end, Terzaghi’s bearing capacity theory is tweaked and used to develop the hypothesis. This study performs a set of discrete element simulations to test the hypothesis and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Access the Conference Proceedings Paper on ASCE Library 

Understanding the bearing resistance of planetary regolith is essential to establish a long-term presence on the planets, e.g., extraterrestrial human habitat construction. Despite its importance, our understanding of the bearing resistance remains at best incomplete due to the dearth of data collected from the planetary surface missions as well as the limited amount of planetary soil samples available for the study. Moreover, it is hard to experimentally test the bearing resistance in a different gravity condition that can be obtained through parabolic flight, but which is expensive and can simulate a relatively short duration of different gravities. On the other hand, numerical studies using the discrete element method typically require high computational cost. This study hypothesizes a new approach to investigate the soil bearing resistance in a different gravity environment by simply scaling the particle density instead of reproducing the different gravity conditions. To this end, Terzaghi’s bearing capacity theory is tweaked and used to develop the hypothesis. This study performs a set of discrete element simulations to test the hypothesis and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

**[Access the Conference Proceedings Paper on ASCE Library](https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784483374.070)** 

Understanding the Soil Bearing Resistance in a Different Gravity Environment via Particle Density Scaling

This conference brought the experience and knowledge of experts in the aerospace industry together to share and discuss the latest research and engineering techniques that effect the exploration and settlement of space. Presentations were made in multiple concurrent symposia over three days. Topics included: Granular materials in space exploration, exploration in utilization of extra-terrestrial bodies, advanced materials and designs for aerospace and terrestrial structures under extreme environment, structures in challenging environments, and space engineering, construction, and architecture for the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Due to challenges with COVID-19, this 17th Biennial was moved to April 2021 and was offered in a virtual format.

[Paper Proceedings](https://ascelibrary.org/doi/book/10.1061/earthandspace2021)

Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.26226/m.63243a3fb7ff860013acd57f