All News

Tuesday 5th November 2019, marked GDS official 40th Birthday. Celebrations kicked off with a buffet lunch, followed by a charity raffle (£200 raised for Sebastian Action Trust) and concluded with fantastic triaxial cell birthday cake.

On Thursday 26th of September in Bogota, Colombia, with the support of the Piloto University, GDS Instruments and one of its local agents Geotechnology S.A.S, held a training seminar with our Colombian customers. We were glad to receive the visit of academics from the National University of Colombia, La Salle University, Javeriana University, Distrital University, Gran Colombia University and the Santander Industrial University

Alexis Antoniou a Geotechnical Systems Engineer from GDS Instruments has recently returned from Sweden, where he installed three Bishop and Wesley automated triaxial testing systems. MITTA AB are developing their temperature-controlled laboratory in Gottsärk to expand their abilities to test soft clays.

SA Geolab International PL (SAGeo) based in Singapore, have recently announced the provision of a soil laboratory that can operate from 4°C to normal room temperature. This temperature range gives SAGeo the capability to carry out soil testing at in-situ temperature for deep water soil investigation. 

Today GDS welcomed 24 engineers/technicians/electricians/workshop machinists from NGI (Norwegian Geotechnical Institute), as part of their UK tour. Our guests had a tour of the offices, were given product demonstrations and discussed future product developments. Over lunch our there was an opportunity to discuss all things geotechnical with the technical team at GDS.

GDS was honoured this month to receive a visit from Laurie Wesley, world renowned soil mechanic, PhD Student of Professor Alan Bishop, and inventor of the famous triaxial cell that takes his name the “Bishop and Wesley Stress Path Cell”. Laurie, from Auckland New Zealand, designed the cell during his PhD with Alan Bishop in the mid 1970’s.  GDS have been producing a stress path triaxial cell based on Laurie’s design since the early 1980’s, and still produce and updated version of this extremely flexible triaxial cell now.  

BAM Ritchies, the award winning Ground Engineering Division of BAM Nuttall, have recently upgraded their consolidation testing capability at their principal laboratory to include GDS’ Automatic Oedometer System (GDSAOS). The GDSAOS, is the modern replacement for a traditional hanging weight oedometer. The self-contained stepper motor driven unit can be controlled either manually using its Smart Keypad or from a PC using the USB interface. 

The 2019 QS World University Ranking report has been released and lists the world’s top universities by subject area. On examining the listing for the top Civil & Structural Engineering universities, GDS have supplied equipment to 84% of the world’s top 50!  In 2017, when we carried out the same review of the report, GDS had supplied 75%. 

Mike Bulley, the Technical Resource Pool Manager at GDS Instruments has recently returned from an installation at North Carolina State University (NC State). 

Clayton Dodd, Sales Director at GDS Instruments, recently visited the National Earthquake Engineering Research Center (NCREE) in Taiwan. The NCREE have recently installed a dedicated advanced dynamic testing laboratory at their new site in Tainan. GDS were chosen as the exclusive supplier for the laboratory and have installed Static, Dynamic, Shear and Resonant Column apparatus within the laboratory.