Abstract:Effects of traffic on soil properties are poorly understood, and very few methods are available for measurement of these effects. In this paper, dusting rate under vehicles different in velocity and destruction of structures of the soils were measured to explore impact of traffic on physical properties of soils of arid grasslands. Experiments were conducted with vehicle simulation under field conditions. These experiments involve four velocities (V=20, 30, 40, and 50 km h-1), seven frequencies of crushing (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 times) and four soil surfaces (heavily eroded land, mediumeroded land, newly eroded land and grassland). The results indicate that under the impact of wheels, soil structures would be destroyed forming soils particles 0.063~1.0 mm in size in the soil surface. With frequent crushing of wheels, soil particle sizes would vary in the range of 0.125~0.18 mm, and the amount of broken soil mass would increase. Also, the dusting rate would increase with the velocity of the vehicles, showing a quadratic function relationship. Moreover, vehicles could affect bulk density and compression strength of the soils, and they would increase with frequency of the compaction of wheels.