ARS | Publication request: THREE DIMENSIONAL FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF SOIL INTERACTION WITH A RIGID WHEEL

Submitted to: Applied Mathematics and Computation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: December 11, 2004
Publication Date: March 1, 2005
Citation: Chiroux, R.C., Foster Jr., W.A., Johnson, C.E., Shoop, S.A., Raper, R.L. 2005. Three dimensional finite element analysis of soil interaction with a rigid wheel. Applied Mathematics and Computation. 162(2):707-722.

Interpretive Summary: Modeling of a tire rolling across the soil has proven to be extremely difficult due to the complexity of the flexible tire carcass and the behavior of soil. If a numerical solution could be obtained to this problem, then soil compaction could be minimized and traction could be maximized for specific soil and tire combinations. This paper reports on a computer model that used a rigid wheel to simulate a tire as it rolled across the soil. Reasonable predictions of traction and compaction were obtained with this procedure. Future improvements in the model should enable more accurate predictions of soil compaction and traction to be made for flexible tires instead of rigid wheels.

Technical Abstract: This paper focuses on the contact and interaction between a wheel and the soil it is moving over. Up to this point, stable solutions were typically obtained by giving the wheel an enforced displacement with a plane strain model. The objective of this effort has been threefold. First the enforced displacement constraint has been removed and the force due to the dynamic load on the wheel was applied to the model. Secondly, this effort has demonstrated the ability to accurately model this application within the limits of an engineering workstation environment. Additionally, a dynamic analysis as opposed to a static analysis provided a time history of the wheel/soil interaction and modeled the truly dynamic behavior of the problem.