Raindrop Impact Stress and the Breakdown of Soil Crumbs

Summary The stress produced by raindrop impact, calculated as the rate of change of momentum divided by area of contact, was found to be only partly satisfactory in studies of breakdown of paper tissue and soil crumbs. The calculated stresses for failure did not agree closely with values found by other methods, and varied systematically with raindrop size. The differences were related to the effect of duration of application of stress, and to the concentration of stress around the periphery of the drop.