Behaviour of wet clay due to off-road traffic loading

Abstract The presence of water in the soil can greatly affect the trafficability of off-roading vehicles, making it difficult to operate. As the water content increases, it can eventually lead to sinkage and immobility. Despite the relevance of this topic in many applications, such as military, agricultural, and earthmoving vehicles, the studies available on tire and moist soil interaction are limited. The numerical modeling of such a system is very challenging because it requires accounting for hydro-mechanical effects, large deformations, non-linear behavior, and complex interactions between the tire and the soil. This work contributes to the understanding of the behavior of moist clay under the influence of traffic loading. In particular, the preliminary results of numeric simulations to study the interaction between moist clay and a passing tire using physics-based techniques are presented. A great emphasis is given to the development of an accurate soil model that can capture the fundamental characteristics of moist clays in saturated conditions.