3 ms·
Water in concert with temperature flux is really destructive causing a massive amount of erosion here on Earth. With that said thermal cycles on the moon are v
by pixl97 2y ago
Water in concert with temperature flux is really destructive causing a massive amount of erosion here on Earth.
With that said thermal cycles on the moon are very large, with a range up to 450F. That much thermal expansion and contraction over time is going to be hard on anything not shielded under some soil.
- consumer451 2y agoI wonder what a structure of metal(aluminum?) would look like after hundreds of thousands of 14-day 450F cycles. How many cycles would it take to turn into a mound? Would a coherent mound still count as "existing?"
- pixl97 2y agoAluminum might be one of the worst metals to use in an application like this. https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/technical-faq-aluminum-frame-crankarm-fatigue/ https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/technical-fa... >Aluminum does not have a distinct fatigue or endurance limit, so its S-N graph curves down from the upper left to the right and continues to curve down lower and lower toward the lower right corner of the graph. This illustrates that it will eventually fail even from low stress applications, given enough of them. Steel/titanium, if its fatigue tolerance is in the temperature range, would last much longer if not near indefinably until it came to impacts.