Computational Analysis of the Vibrational Response of Lunar Regolith Made of Nonspherical Grains

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ABSTRACT Vibration‐based systems have shown that appropriately oriented and tuned mechanical oscillations can disrupt regolith interlocking and promote flow. Building on this evidence, the present study investigates vibration‐controlled granular discharge as a potential ISRU (In Situ Resource Utilization) strategy, with the aim of supporting predictable material processing through physically consistent numerical modeling. The equations governing the dynamics of nonspherical particles are presented accordingly and used to simulate the behavior of a fixed mass of granular material flowing through a hopper device in the framework of the discrete element method (DEM). The results show that even for monodisperse distributions vibration‐induced fluidization does not follow simple monotonic trends. The mass flow rate initially increases with the forcing frequency f , reaching a plateau in the range of 150–200 Hz, beyond which further frequency increases produce no significant enhancement. At the same time, higher values of the dimensionless acceleration Γ generally reduce the mass flow rate and cause an increase in the frequency threshold above which vibration‐driven discharge exceeds gravity‐driven flow. Moreover, for fixed, moderately low values of Γ, increasing f leads to the emergence of higher‐order harmonics in the instantaneous mass flow rate. For fixed and relatively high values of f , a larger value of Γ can cause the appearance of subharmonics in the spectrum. In contrast, for relatively low f and high Γ, incommensurate spectral components appear, which reduce the regularity and predictability of the flow response. These findings are supported by a detailed analysis of particle patterning behavior and frequency spectra, which reveals the fine‐scale dynamics underlying the observed flow regimes.

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