Arthur Langtry Bell

Arthur Langtry Bell (born August 18, 1874 - August 7, 1956 ) was a British civil engineer and pioneer of geotechnical engineering .

Bell studied at the Royal University of Ireland and the Queen's University of Belfast , where he received his master's degree. He then worked for the Belfast and County Down Railway and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway before becoming a civil engineer with the British Admiralty in 1901, where he served in various ports and docks both in the UK and abroad. In 1934 he retired as Superintendent Civil Engineer, returned to the service again during World War II, and finally retired in 1946.

He is best known as a pioneer of soil mechanics, especially for the behavior of clay soils and the investigation of their shear strength. For his essay The lateral pressure and resistance of clay and supporting power of clay foundations (Minutes Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, Volume 199, 1915, pp. 233-272) he received the Telford Gold Medal of the ICE . He deals with the pressure at rest on earth, the undrained shear strength and the load-bearing capacity of clay soils and gravel columns in clay soils. For this he developed a frame shear device, the first of its kind in Great Britain. Alexandre Collin had already carried out such measurements in France (published in 1846), but that had been forgotten.

In 1904 he became an associate and in 1913 a full member (Fellow) of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

literature

• Alec Skempton : Arthur Langtry Bell (1874-1956) and his contribution to soil mechanics , Geotechnique, Volume 8, 1958, pp. 143-157
• Obituary in Proc. ICE, Volume 6, 1957