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Alan Wilfred Bishop (27 May 1920 – 30 June 1988) was a British geotechnical engineer and academic, working at Imperial College London.

He was known for the Bishop's method of analysing soil slopes. After his graduation from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Bishop worked under Alec Skempton and obtained his PhD in 1952 with his thesis title being: The stability of earth dams. He worked extensively in the field of experimental Soil mechanics and developed apparati for soil testing, such as the triaxial test and the ring shear.

His contribution to the science was widely acknowledged and he was invited in 1966 to deliver the 6th Rankine Lecture of the British Geotechnical Association titled: The strength of soils as engineering materials.

Nowadays, a part of the Soil Mechanics Laboratories at Imperial College is named after him in recognition of his long-time work at the College.

See also

• Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London
• Slope stability analysis

References

1. Bishop's method
2. Bishop A. W. (1952), The stability of earth dams. PhD Thesis, Imperial College London
3. Bishop A. W. (1966), The strength of soils as engineering materials. Rankine Lecture, Geotechnique, 16 (2), 91–130

External links

• Obituary
• The Skempton and Bishop Archives

• 1920 births
• 1988 deaths
• Academics of Imperial College London
• Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Geotechnical engineers
• Alumni of Imperial College London
• Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge
• English civil engineers
• People from Whitstable