Background
Schofield was born on 1 November 1930, son of Rev John Noel Schofield and Winifred Jane Mary Eyles in Cambridge, England.
Schofield was born on 1 November 1930, son of Rev John Noel Schofield and Winifred Jane Mary Eyles in Cambridge, England.
Andrew Schofield studied engineering and graduated from Christ"s College Cambridge in 1951 (Schofield 2005). He returned to Cambridge University to work with Professor Kenneth H. Roscoe on his Doctor of Philosophy, which he completed in 1961 (Rowe 1980).
He retired from Cambridge University in 1997. He then worked in the Nyasaland Protectorate, Africa (now Malawi) office of Scott and Wilson Limited. where he performed research on lateritic soils and low cost road construction (Rowe 1980). He became an Assistant Lecturer in 1961 and was elected Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge in 1963 (Schofield 2005).
He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1986.
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 could be used to describe the coupled volumetric and shear behavior of soils. (Roscoe, Schofield & Wroth 1958) led to the development of a constitutive model known as "Cam Clay" that was formalized in the classic text by (Schofield & Wroth 1968).
Schofield was influenced by work on geotechnical centrifuge modeling by G.I. Pokrovsky in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (Schofield 2005) to study geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics problems. He developed a prototype geotechnical centrifuge in Cambridge and later adapted a centrifuge in the English Electric Company in Luton, United Kingdom to be used for geotechnical modelling in 1966 (Rowe 1980), (Schofield 2005).
He accepted a Chair at the Institute of Science and Technology in Manchester (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) in 1968 and developed a 1.5 m radius geotechnical centrifuge there (Rowe 1980), (Schofield 2005).
Following Roscoe"s untimely death in 1970, he returned to Cambridge in 1974 and was appointed as a Professor in the Cambridge University Engineering Department to lead the Soil Mechanics group (Rowe 1980). 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. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1992.
Professor Schofield retired from the University in 1997, but his continued work is evidenced by the publication of a book in 2005 (Schofield 2005).
Royal Society.
