Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Prediction Of Discrete Element Parameters For Modeling The Strength Of Sandy Soils In Wheel/Soil Traction Applications, Timothy Reeves

All Dissertations

The problem of wheel performance on deformable soil has been studied for many years, but prior to the rise of computational mechanics, such investigations have been limited to development of analytical and empirical models, as well as experimental research. Such models have merit but are necessarily highly idealized and are limited in their applications. Today, many computational models have been implemented for a wide variety of wheel/soil applications.
For the specific case of sandy (i.e. non-cohesive) soils, in terms of the soil's physics the Discrete Element Method (DEM) provides arguably the most realistic model. In DEM, each element represents a …