Soil compaction is a potential problem in many agricultural soils due to the increasing mass of agricultural vehicles and equipment and tendency of farmers to work fields when soil is wet. A review of literature showed that some control measures can be taken such as controlling traffic to reduce compaction or use of tillage to remove the effects of compaction. Many implements have been used to loosen compacted soil, but in their design compaction depth was not considered and also these implements are designed for full width tillage as opposed to tillage only in the zone that has been compacted by traffic. A controllable device that would remove soil compaction immediately after being trafficked by the agricultural vehicle is needed;A relationship between compaction depth and sinkage depth was developed from literature describing previous research. Laboratory and field experiments were conducted to verify this relationship. In the laboratory experiment soil at varying water contents was compacted with a metal plate made to simulate the tractor tire. Different stresses were used to create different sinkage depths. Bulk density and sinkage depth formed as a result of stress applied were measured. Bulk density of the control soil was subtracted from bulk density of the compacted soil and the difference was used to determine the depth at which the stress applied increased bulk density by 0.05 Mg/m[superscript]3. In the field experiment, a tractor with different tire inflation pressures and with different axle loads was used to traffic plots to create different sinkage depths. Bulk density samples were taken and analyzed as in the laboratory experiment to determine the compaction depth. A curve fitting technique was used to determine the best curve to represent the data. Results showed that compaction depth, Y, can be related to sinkage depth, X, by the empirical relationship, Y = bX[superscript] m where b and m are constants. The laboratory experiment on Webster silty clay loam soil showed compaction depth to be related to sinkage depth by Y = 52.5X[superscript]0.32 with R[superscript]2 of 0.82. The field experiment on Nicollet loam soil showed compaction depth to be related to sinkage depth by Y = 13.9X[superscript]0.73 with R[superscript]2 of 0.50;A double layer soil compaction loosener was developed. The design chosen was selected from three models tested on dry and wet soil in an indoor soil bin. A field experiment to measure sinkages formed by a tractor with different inflation pressures on the rear tires and different axle loads was conducted to evaluate the performance of the loosener. Depth of tillage with the loosener was controlled by the equation Y = 13.9X[superscript]0.73. Tillage of the trafficked soil with the soil loosener reduced bulk density from 1.48 to 1.26 Mg/m[superscript]3 and cone index from 406 to 55 kPa.