PERFORMANCE OF A RIGID TINE IN RELATION TO SOIL PROPERTIES AND SPEED

The performance of a tine in terms of soil forces and soil failure has been evaluated over a wide range of soil moisture content and a thousand-fold range of speed in both clay and sandy soils. The performance of the tine fell into one of two regimes which were determined by soil moisture content. The transition between the two regimes occurred near to, but below, the plastic limit of the soil. The draught force at very low speed could be predicted by a two-dimensional model of soil failure; the prediction was very accurate in the low moisture regime. It was shown that soil shear strength was the major term in the model. © 1979.