Andrew N. Schofield
Encyclopedia
Life
Andrew N. Schofield was born on 1 November 1930, son of Rev John Noel Schofield and Winifred Jane Mary Eyles in Cambridge, England. He married Margaret Eileen Green in 1961 . He retired from Cambridge University in 1997.Career
Andrew Schofield studied engineering and graduated from Christ's College Cambridge in 1951 . He then worked in the Nyasaland Protectorate, Africa (now MalawiMalawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
) office of Scott and Wilson Ltd. where he performed research on lateritic soils and low cost road construction . He returned to Cambridge University to work with Professor Roscoe on his PhD, which he completed in 1961 . He became an Assistant Lecturer in 1961 and was elected Fellow of Churchill College in 1963 .
With Ken Roscoe and Peter Wroth in 1958 he published "On the Yielding of Soils", which showed how plasticity theory and critical state soil mechanics
Critical state soil mechanics
Critical State Soil Mechanics is the area of Soil Mechanics that encompasses the conceptual models that represent the mechanical behavior of saturated remolded soils based on the Critical State concept.-Formulation:...
could be used to describe the coupled volumetric and shear behavior of soils. led to the development of a constitutive model known as 'Cam Clay' that was formalized in the classic text by .
Schofield was influenced by work on geotechnical centrifuge modeling by G.I. Pokrovsky in the USSR to study geotechnical engineering
Geotechnical engineering
Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. Geotechnical engineering is important in civil engineering, but is also used by military, mining, petroleum, or any other engineering concerned with construction on or in the ground...
and soil mechanics
Soil mechanics
Soil mechanics is a branch of engineering mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids and particles but soil may also contain organic solids, liquids, and gasses and other...
problems. He developed a prototype geotechnical centrifuge in Cambridge and later adapted a centrifuge in the English Electric Company in Luton, UK to be used for geotechnical modelling in 1966 , .
He accepted a Chair at the Institute of Science and Technology in Manchester (UMIST) in 1968 and developed a 1.5 m radius geotechnical centrifuge there , . Following Roscoe's untimely death, he returned to Cambridge in 1974 and was appointed as a Professor in the Cambridge University Engineering Department
Cambridge University Engineering Department
The Cambridge University Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest departments in the university. The main site is situated at Trumpington Street, to the south of Cambridge city centre. The department is the primary centre for engineering teaching and research...
to lead the Soil Mechanics group . Working with a mechanical design engineer, Phillip Turner, he developed a 5 m radius geotechnical centrifuge at Cambridge University that continues to be heavily used in 2010. Professor Schofield retired from the University in 1997, but his continued work is evidenced by the publication of a book in 2005 .