Soil compaction of the agricultural soils is a result of soil machine interactions, which influence physical and biological soil properties and their relations with crop growth and yield. The objective of this study was to determine the compression index, the preconsolidation pressure and the soil strain of a Haplortox (LE) and a Paleudalf (PV), with different initial state of compaction and water saturation. Undisturbed soil samples were collected in two soils and at two depths, at no tillage and conventional tillage, at several locations and different times to obtain a natural variation of bulk density, corresponding to different initial levels of compactness and water saturation. For the uniaxial compression test, successive static loads of 12.2; 25; 50; 100; 200; 400 and 800 kPa were used, during five minutes for each load. This was determined at previous tests, where 99% of the soil strain had occurred at the time. Soil strain showed differentiated behaviors for each soil. For soil Haplortox, under low water saturation (< 30%), the relation for strain versus initial bulk density was curvilinear, whereas for higher water saturation, the relation was practically linear. For the Paleudalf, the relation was curvilinear for low (< 30%) and high (> 60%) water saturation, whereas for the intermediate saturation (30 to 60%) the model was linear. The compression index correlated negatively with the initial bulk density and with water saturation in PV. For high initial bulk density (> 1.45 Mg m-3), the Haplortox had greater susceptibility to compaction when water saturation was near 70%, whereas when the same soil had low compaction (bulk density < 1.30 Mg m-3), the major susceptibility occurred under lower water saturation (near 50%). Multiple regression equations for preconsolidation pressure, using initial bulk density and water saturation, had low determination coefficient (0.28 for PV and 0.32 for LE), although significant, which indicates the need for incorporation of more variables in these models.
compressibility; compression index; preconsolidation pressure; bulk density; water saturation