GDS was honoured this month to receive a visit from Laurie Wesley, world renowned soil mechanic, PhD Student of Professor Alan Bishop, and inventor of the famous triaxial cell that takes his name the “Bishop and Wesley Stress Path Cell”. Laurie, from Auckland New Zealand, designed the cell during his PhD with Alan Bishop in the mid 1970’s. GDS have been producing a stress path triaxial cell based on Laurie’s design since the early 1980’s, and still produce and updated version of this extremely flexible triaxial cell now.
Computer control of this cell was essentially the birth of GDS as a company, with the paper by Bruce Menzies the founder of GDS entitled “A Computer Controlled Hydraulic Triaxial Testing System” in 1988, taking the initiative for GDS being recognised as the first company to produce computer controlled triaxial testing apparatus capable of complex automated stress paths. It was a pleasure to show Laurie a number of the cells being produced at the GDS factory.
Laurie also presented Karl Snelling, Managing Director of GDS, with a signed copy of his new book entitled “The Bishop Method - The life and achievements of Professor Alan W. Bishop, soil mechanics pioneer”.
Laurie’s book is available now from Whittles Publishing, with ISBN number 978-1-84995-439-6, and is a recommended read for anyone who works within geotechnical engineering who would like to understand the early days of one of the pioneers of our science at Imperial College during the 1950’s and 1960’s, and particularly interesting to those who work in a geotechnical laboratory.
GDS Triaxial Testing System (Automated Stress Path Type)