Propagación del incremento de esfuerzos verticales en un suelo agrícola de Tarabuco: esfuerzo de preconsolidación en suelos no saturados

Abstract

The present paper assess the risk of soil compaction through an unsaturated profile due to the passage of agricultural machinery following the concept of precompression stress, which is the threshold between the elastic and plastic state of a unsaturated soil. In order to calculate the precompression  stress, simulations have been carried out with the TERRANIMO software; and laboratory one-dimensional consolidation tests, with a unsaturated soils triaxial apparatus. The experimental site consisted by two agricultural places located in Tarabuco, both constituted in their stratigraphic profile by a sandy silt soil (ML). The tractor is a John Deere model 6110D, employing an inflation pressure of 83 kPa to the both tires. For the measurements of matric suction, it was employed Tensiometers (Red Fill type) at a depth of 0.30 m. With the results obtained, it has been concluded that the two experimental fields do not reach their plastic state and there is no risk of soil compaction with the imposed inflation pressure conditions, simulations and laboratory tests of the precompression stress provided correlations of 1.69 % and 10.72 %. Finally, it has been found that an increase of 10 kPa in matric suction generated a 7% on the increase in precompression stress.