Alan W. Bishop

Alan Wilfred Bishop ( born May 27, 1920 in Whitstable, † June 30, 1988 ) was a British pioneer of soil mechanics.

Bishop went on to King's College, Wimbledon and studied at Cambridge University ( Emmanuel College, graduated 1942). It was 1952 when Alec Skempton at Imperial College received his doctorate ( PhD, with the work The stability of earth dams). He was a professor at Imperial College, where he was in Skemptons Department Assistant Lecturer at first in 1946, 1947 Lecturer, Reader in 1957 ( the same year he received the doctoral degree DSc ) and 1965 received a full professorship in soil mechanics. 1970 to 1973 he was dean of the City and Guilds College, Imperial College. In 1980 he retired and then was a Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College ( from 1983 with the title of Professor Emeritus).

In 1966, he was the 6th Rankine Lecturer ( The Strength of soil as engineering materials, Geotechnique, Volume 16, 1966, p.91 -130).

Bishop is known particularly for methods of analysis of the stability of embankments and earth dams (including the Gleitkreisverfahren, in Bishop The use of the slip circle in the stability analysis of slopes, Geotechnique, Volume 5, 1955, pp. 7-17 ) and the development of Triaxialgeräts (where he worked with David Henkel). In addition, he developed methods for measuring the pore water pressure. As early as the 1940s, when he examined the failure of dams at the Building Research Station for the Metropolitan Water Board, he developed his own devices for testing of soil properties and sampling.

Bishop was a passionate sailor. Since 1983, he was married.