A Mohr-Coulomb-Vilar model for constitutive relationship in root-soil interface under changing suction

Abstract Understanding mechanical interactions at the root-soil interface is essential to predict the erosion of vegetated slopes. Recently, the shear strength of vegetatedil under changing hydraulic conditions has been measured and modeled; however, root-soil interfaces have not been investigated under changing hydraulic conditions. This paper proposes (1) a novel pullout apparatus to measure the shear strength at the root-soil interface under changing suction, (2) a Mohr-Coulomb-Vilar (MCV) shear strength model of root-soil interfaces, and (3) a numerical simulation using Node-To-Segment (NTS) approach along with Finite Element Method (FEM). The pullout tests were verified using the numerical simulation, and the results showed that the combination of the MCV model and NTS/FEM approach can accurately predict the shear behavior of root-soil interfaces under changing suction. In addition, we experimentally evaluated the pullout problem of roots and showed that the present method provides reasonably predicts root-pullout problems even when the suction is changed during the pullout process. The current method, therefore, can be used for predicting root-soil interface dynamics under varying suction and soil pressure by only adding two additional parameters of the Vilar model.