Modelling of stress transfer in root-reinforced soils informed by four-dimensional X-ray computed tomography and digital volume correlation data.

ABSTRACT: Vegetation enhances soil shearing resistance through water uptake and root reinforcement. Analytical models for soils reinforced with roots rely on input parameters that are difficult to measure, leading to widely varying predictions of behaviour. The opaque heterogeneous nature of rooted soils results in complex soil-root interaction mechanisms that cannot easily be quantified. The authors measured, for the first time, the shear resistance and deformations of fallow, willow-rooted and gorse-rooted soils during direct shear using X-ray computed tomography and digital volume correlation. Both species caused an increase in shear zone thickness, both initially and as shear progressed. Shear zone thickness peaked at up to 35 mm, often close to the thickest roots and towards the centre of the c

SUBMITTER: Bull DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8727151 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature