ABSTRACT
Since the strength of a soil is of major importance to vehicle mobility, and the effective strength varies significantly with soil moisture, a means of forecasting soil moisture variation could form the basis of a real-time soil trafficability model. In order to match recent developments applying the Coulomb equation to the substantial data bases available for cone index measures, it is necessary to attempt to relate the cone index to the engineering properties of the soil. The proposition here is that soil-water finite difference models eventually coupled to soil engineering property models should provide enhancement of trafficability forecasting. Despite a substantial research effort into the spatial variability of soil parameters, it is clear that for the purposes of trafficability forecasting this area is one of paramount significance to model selection, and to which much further work should now be directed in the context of available forecasting models.
