Material Development and Characterization of Regolith-based Strain-hardening Cementitious Composite

This study develops bendable lunar and Martian regolith-based strain-hardening cementitious composite. Mixtures incorporated four different regolith simulants, lunar highlands (LH) and lunar mare (LM) for Moon and Martian global (MG) and Martian polyhydrated-sulfate (MS) for Mars, with five formulations per celestial body at 65 wt.% simulant replacement and 1 vol.% PE fibers. Characterization included calorimetry/thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), compressive and directtensile testing, crack-pattern analysis under both loading and unloading conditions, and particlepacking evaluation. Bendable Mooncrete achieved compressive strengths of 44-68 MPa and strain-hardening tensile behavior with 2.3-5.7% ultimate strain at 4.9-7.2 MPa peak stress, consistently coupling strength with ductility. Bendable Marscrete reached 31-50 MPa in compression and 4.4-9.2% tensile strain at 3.2-5.9 MPa peak stress, showing compositiondependent trade-offs between strength (MG-rich) and ductility (MS-rich). Crack mapping confirmed multiple-cracking pattern without localization. Mooncrete exhibited fewer, tighter cracks while Marscrete showed higher crack multiplicity with wider openings, and both systems displayed measurable crack-width recovery upon unloading. These results demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating high-simulant, strain-hardening composites from lunar and Martian regolith simulants and highlight composition as a lever to tune stiffness, strength, and ductility for resilient space infrastructure.