Advanced Continuation Methods for Limit Load and Shear Strength Reduction Methods

This contribution is focused on numerical determination of factors of safety within slope stability assessment and other applications.The limit load and the shear strength reduction methods are considered, combined with the Mohr-Coulomb plasticity and the finite element method.To suppress spurious numerical oscillations observed for nonassociated plastic models, Davis' modifications of the limit load and the shear strength reduction methods are considered.To suppress numerical overestimation of the factors of safety, a special continuation technique is suggested and its convergence with respect to a spatial discretization parameter is discussed.The paper also contains many useful details to this problematic which are explained on an algebraic level to be easily understandable.