Induction melting, casting, and weldability of a group IAB iron meteorite

Future construction of large-scale space structures will need to exploit natural space resources for raw materials such as iron from asteroids, which is expected to be a key element due to its availability in near-Earth objects. Although the relative availability of iron-nickel asteroids makes them attractive candidates for space manufacturing, they contain defects and inhomogeneous concentrations of elements such as carbon, phosphorous, and sulfur, along with brittle intermetallic phases, cracks, and voids, that limits their usefulness in their native state. Refinement of the meteoritic metal microstructure and chemistry is required to render them useful as structural elements that can be fabricated by casting, thermomechanical processing, or welding. This study investigates the vacuum induction melting and casting of a Canyon Diablo Group 1AB-MG coarse octahedrite meteorite demonstrating, as a first step, that cast material can be produced with a refined and more homogeneous microstructure. However, additional metallurgical refinement is still needed to reduce the phosphorous content to produce high quality meteoritic steels or alloys for space construction. • Iron-nickel meteorite fragments were melted and cast using a vacuum induction process • Meteoritic castings have microstructures similar to conventional steel alloys • VIM castings have lower carbon, higher nickel, and equally high phosphorous levels • Mechanical properties of the castings, and welds in them, showed poor tensile ductility • Additional chemical refinement during melting is required to improve mechanical properties