Lunar soils, simulants and lunar construction materials: An overview.

• 54 regolith simulants by 10 countries are presented in one list for the first time. • TBG-1 is a recent lunar soil simulant by Turkey with soils from 9 volcanic areas. • Using 3D printing in lunar construction materials can to transform ISRU capabilities. • Sintered simulants used as building blocks have promising compressive strengths. • Investigation results may vary greatly according to the simulants' characteristics. One of the hot subjects in space civil engineering is the research for establishing outposts on space bodies, starting with the Moon. This wide research topic mainly covers learning about ground conditions and soils of these extraterrestrial bodies, looking for means of using the soil in producing construction materials, designing structures appropriate for local conditions, and finally choosing construction techniques to be applied using mainly these materials. In this paper, as the title indicates, an overview is presented on three aspects of using local materials in lunar construction activities: nature of in-situ soils obtained with lunar missions, the variety of lunar soil simulants produced on Earth, and their use in producing lunar construction materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]