1 Analysis and Simulation of the Ultrasonic/Sonic

An ultrasonic/sonic driller/corer (USDC) was developed to address the challenges to the NASA objective of planetary in-situ rock sampling and analysis. The USDC uses a novel drive mechanism, transferring ultrasonic vibration into impacts on a drill stem at sonic frequency using a free-flying mass block (free-mass). The main parts of the device and the interactions between them were analyzed and numerically modeled to understand the drive mechanism and allow design of effective drilling mechanism. A computer program was developed to simulate the operation of the USDC and successfully predicted the characteristic behavior of the new device. This paper covers the theory, the analytical models and the algorithms that were developed and the predicted results