Diurnal Temperature Variation on an Intact and Damaged Lunar Habitat Structure

This paper presents the surface temperature and temperature through thickness profile of a monolithic concrete dome habitat structure in the intact and damaged condition on the Moon. Due to long duration days and nights in the lunar environment, a habitat built on the Moon is subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations. The three-dimensional thermodynamics heat balance equation was solved using the explicit finite difference method. While the direct solar radiation and lunar albedo were used as the heat sources, non-blackbody radiation and habitat albedo were taken as heat sinks. The convective boundary condition with the constant interior air temperature of 293.15 K was used for the temperature calculation. In the intact condition, the maximum temperature of around 365 K was found at the external wall surface on crown (apex) of dome during the solar noon and the minimum temperature of around 222 K was determined during the night time irrespective of the location on the dome. For the damaged condition, the difference between daytime high and nighttime low temperature at the interior wall surface of the lunar structure can be as large as 57 K.