History of the BSSM

The origin of the BSSM goes back to the early 1960s and the strain measurement conferences organised by the Strain Gauge Division of Saunders-Roe Ltd, an aircraft manufacturer in the Isle of Wight, who later merged with Westland Aircraft.*

A small committee constituted from the conference participants in May 1964 at Brunel University and discussed the need for a society of strain measurement. They elected an organising committee and in September 1964, the British Society for Strain Measurement (BSSM) was formed. BSSM was administered through a National Executive Committee (NEC) until 1984 when the National Council (NATCO) was formed. This was a smaller body than NEC, and allowed more detailed matters to be handled by separate committees, each with it's special remit and technical interest.

The first issue of Strain, the society’s quarterly journal, was published in January 1965, and is still in publication today. It has now developed into an internationally leading publication in the world of experimental mechanics.

In the early days the scientific focus was very much on electrical strain gauges and photoelasticity, extending to holography, finite element analysis, thermoelastic stress analysis and optical fibre sensors in the 70s and 80s. More recently, the range of experimental techniques has diversified further and the scope and interests of the Society has developed to include full-field non-contact techniques such as digital image correlation, X-ray and micro-computer tomography, 3D strain techniques, residual stress measurement, high speed imaging and high strain rate measurements, and techniques specific to particular applications and sectors such as orthopaedic biomechanics, soft tissue, graphene, structural health monitoring, composite sandwich structures and microscale in-situ materials characterisation.

The Society celebrated it's 50th Anniversary in 2014 and in that year also organised the highly successful International Conference on Experimental Mechanics (ICEM16) at the University of Cambridge. The series of annual conferences continues as does the work of the Society in providing training and certification, and dissemination of new techniques and good practice through workshops and seminars on topics of direct relevance to the BSSM membership.