Large Deformation Modeling of Soil-Machine Interaction in Clay

The evaluation of soil reaction force on tillage tool is important for design and management optimization. The large deformation, dynamic nature and complex soil-tool contact in the problem make it a challenge in numerical modeling. The popular finite element method (FEM) has distorted mesh in large deformation, and complex adaptive remeshing techniques need to be used in soil-tool interaction simulation. On the other hand, numerical approaches based on computational fluid mechanics (CFD) and discrete element method (DEM), although avoid mesh distortion, have difficulties in capturing the true mechanical properties of soils. In this study, we develop a total Lagrangian SPH (TL-SPH) approach for simulating the large deformation soil-machine interaction in clay. The TL-SPH is simple in formulation and computationally efficient. The accuracy and stability of the method is improved by employing an hourglass control technique. Soil-tool contact is modeled using a node-to-segment (NTS) contact algorithm. Preliminary numerical studies are carried out, it is demonstrated that the presented approach is capable of capturing salient soil-tool interaction properties.