Abstract: Researching the erosion characteristics of cohesive soil is the key to preventing hydraulic structures from destructing. Erosion experiments of remolded cohesive soil were carried out by the Erosion Function Apparatus (EFA), and according to the experimental results, the relations between erodibility parameters in both Wilson model and excess shear stress model were studied. The relations of critical shear stress against water content, dry unit weight and cohesion in the two models were examined. In addition, the goodness of fit of the two models was evaluated using determination coefficient R² and normalized objective function NOF. Results revealed a power function relationship between the erodibility parameters of the two models and a linear relationship between critical shear stress and soil parameters. Given an erosion parameter, the other erosion parameters could be obtained through regression. The Wilson model has better R² and NOF than excess shear stress model. Therefore, the rationality and accuracy of Wilson model in predicting the erosion rate of cohesive soil are higher than that of excess shear stress model.

Key words: erosion parameters, cohesive soil, Wilson model, excess shear stress model, correlations among parameters