Dr Terry Cousens

Dr Terry Cousens

Profile

BSc(Hons) 1st - Civil Engineering, Leeds University, 1973. PhD - Soil Mechanics - Cambridge, 1981.

Dr Terry Cousens joined Huntingdon County Council on graduation from the University of Leeds.  He worked in the Highways section on the design of roads and on site, supervising construction.  He then joined the Soil Mechanics group at Cambridge University.  His research involved experimental work using various types of transducer and high energy X-ray imaging of samples as well as centrifuge modelling.  THis was followed by a period at Warren Springs Laboratory, a government industrial research facility, where he worked on problems of materials handling, mainly in the filtration and separation processes for particulate solids, both in the laboratory and in industrial plants.

In 1979 he joined the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds, where he is a senior lecturer in Geotechnics, teaching soil mechanics to both undergraduate and postgraduate students and undertaking research in geotechnics.  He has also taught other engineering subjects, such as surveying, and has a special interest in project based learning

He has worked extensively on student recruitment and counselling at the University and since 2015 has concentrated on developing international links, especially in the engineering field, and in the recruitment of international students, travelling widely in many parts of the world.

Research interests

Terry Cousens' research interests cover three main areas in geotechnics - fundamental stress-strain behaviour of soil, soil-structure interaction and environmental geotechnics. Work in the first area has concentrated on the behaviour of soils at low ('working') strain levels, using a version of the true triaxial apparatus and a specially designed plane strain apparatus. Various soil-structure interaction problems have been investigated including soil reinforcement (foundations and retaining walls), and pile behaviour. Much of his research effort is now being concentrated in the final area, environmental geotechnics, with studies of the design and performance of landfill, especially bentonite enhanced liners and the geotechnical behaviour of loose hydraulically deposited waste materials. He concentrates on experimental work, both in the laboratory and on site and has experience in designing and constructing apparatus, laboratory instrumentation and field instrumentation.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>