Wheel-soil interaction model for rover simulation based on plasticity theory

A novel approach is proposed for the modeling of rigid-wheel and soft-soil interaction using infinitesimal plasticity theory. Our motivation is the need to have a model compatible with dynamic models of multibody systems. The idea is to use a prescribed velocity field in the vicinity of the contact area based on the physics of the problem, and find the changes in the stress field by resorting to plasticity theory and an appropriate constitutive relation for soil. In this paper the Drucker-Prager constitutive relation with cap hardening is employed. The proposed approach leads to results that tally with those obtained using well-established semi-empirical models. The calibration of the semi-empirical model parameters is done by performing simulation runs using detailed FEM models with the Abaqus/Explicit software package.