Prediction of Soil Stresses Using the Finite Element Method

A finite element program has been developed that used a compaction model for agricultural soils developed at the National Soil Dynamics Laboratory (NSDL) and Auburn University to predict linear elastic parameters for each element in the model. Incremental loading was used by the finite element model to gradually load the soil so that these linear parameters could be varied many times over the loading period. The finite element model was compared with data obtained from soil bin research. Results showed that a flat disc load was modeled well but a spherical disc load was not.