A review of soil modeling for numerical simulations of soil-tire/agricultural tools interaction

The study of deformable soils is one of the key factors in determining the tire, vehicle and/or agricultural tool design parameters. This literature review provides a brief overview of soil classification, soil testing, soil constitutive models, and numerical approaches utilized to model soil-tire/tool interaction. In the past, empirical, semi-empirical, and analytical soil models were used in these studies. However, some limitations occurred in terms of characterization of soil-tire/tool interaction in detail due to a large number of variables such as cohesion, moisture content, etc. In the last few decades, the finite element (FE) method was used with different formulations such as Lagrangian, Eulerian, and Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian to simulate the soil-tire/tool interaction. Recently, particle-based methods based on continuum mechanics and discrete mechanics started to be employed and showed good capability in terms of modeling of soil deformation and separation. Overall, this literature review provides simulation researchers insights into soil interaction modeling with tires and agricultural tools.