Stability Assessment of Masonry Domes Using Thrust Network Analysis in Earth and Lunar Environments

In order to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, it is necessary to build habitat structures capable of protecting humans against the lunar environment. Due to scarce resources for lunar construction and the prohibitive cost of transporting materials from Earth, it is planned to utilize lunar regolith as the basis for manufacturing construction materials. These materials are unlikely to possess high tensile strength, therefore compression-dominant structures such as arches, domes and vaults are being considered for structural forms. The stability assessment of hemispherical masonry dome structures is performed, using the Thrust Network Analysis (TNA) method, in different gravitational fields representative of conditions on Earth and the moon. The study’s findings present that reduced gravity is detrimental to the stability of lunar structures due to the reduced self-weight, especially when external horizontal loadings are applied. The results also show that a hemispherical dome is likely to lose its stability when additional vertical loads (in addition to self-weight) are applied and when it has openings.