Deriving The Fundamental Equation of Earthmoving and Configuring Vortex Studio Earthmoving Simulation for Soil Property Estimation Experimentation

TL;DR

This paper derives the fundamental equation governing earthmoving operations and details the configuration of a simulation environment for soil property estimation, supporting in situ testing and analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a new derivation of the fundamental earthmoving equation and configures a simulation setup for soil property estimation experiments.

Findings

Derived the fundamental earthmoving equation for flat blades on sloped soil.

Configured Vortex Studio simulation for soil-tool interaction.

Supports in situ soil property estimation experiments.

Abstract

This document serves as supplementary material for two International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems conference publications regarding in situ soil property estimation by Wagner et al. in 2023 and 2025. It covers the derivation of the fundamental equation of earthmoving for a flat blade moving through sloped soil and provides some information regarding the advanced configuration of Vortex Studio's soil-tool interaction simulation.