Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
journal homepage: www.rockgeotech.org

Full Length Article

Finite element analyses of slope stability problems using non-associated

plasticity
Simon Oberhollenzer*, Franz Tschuchnigg, Helmut F. Schweiger
Institute of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering and Computational Geotechnics, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In recent years, finite element analyses have increasingly been utilized for slope stability problems. In
Received 23 April 2018 comparison to limit equilibrium methods, numerical analyses do not require any definition of the failure
Received in revised form mechanism a priori and enable the determination of the safety level more accurately. The paper com-
12 July 2018
pares the performances of strength reduction finite element analysis (SRFEA) with finite element limit
Accepted 5 September 2018
Available online 15 October 2018
analysis (FELA), whereby the focus is related to non-associated plasticity. Displacement-based finite
element analyses using a strength reduction technique suffer from numerical instabilities when using
non-associated plasticity, especially when dealing with high friction angles but moderate dilatancy
Keywords:
Finite element limit analysis (FELA)
angles. The FELA on the other hand provides rigorous upper and lower bounds of the factor of safety
Finite element method (FoS) but is restricted to associated flow rules. Suggestions to overcome this problem, proposed by Davis
Slope stability (1968), lead to conservative FoSs; therefore, an enhanced procedure has been investigated. When using
Strength reduction technique the modified approach, both the SRFEA and the FELA provide very similar results. Further studies
Non-associated plasticity highlight the advantages of using an adaptive mesh refinement to determine FoSs. Additionally, it is
Adaptive mesh refinement shown that the initial stress field does not affect the FoS when using a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion.
Initial stresses Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
In geotechnical engineering, no generally accepted definition of
the factor of safety (FoS) exists. For many bearing capacity prob-
lems, the FoS is usually defined on the basis of the ultimate load
bearing capacity. However, for slope stability analyses, it is more
common that the FoS is related to the characteristic strength pa-
rameters of the soil. The limit equilibrium methods suggested by
Janbu (1954), Bishop (1955) and Morgenstern and Price (1965) are
based on the method of slices and have a wide tradition in slope
stability analysis. Despite the long-lasting experience with limit
equilibrium analysis (LEA), these methods have several disadvan-
tages, e.g. assumptions regarding the shape of the failure plane and
the forces acting between the slices lead to a non-unique definition
of the FoS. Furthermore, it cannot be guaranteed that the failure
mechanism is kinematically admissible.
Therefore, displacement-based finite element analyses in com-
bination with a strength reduction technique became increasingly
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: s.oberhollenzer@tugraz.at (S. Oberhollenzer).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
popular over the last decades. During the strength reduction
standard procedure, the effective friction angle 40 and the effective
cohesion c0 are simultaneously reduced until no equilibrium can be
achieved in the numerical procedure. The ratios of initial strength
parameters to mobilized strength parameters define the FoS in
terms of strength reduction finite element analysis (SRFEA). Further
calculations are performed with an enhanced procedure at which
the effective dilatancy angle j0 is reduced simultaneously with the
effective friction angle 40 and the effective cohesion c0 from the
beginning (see Section 2.1). Apart from that, the influence of initial
stresses is investigated. It has been previously shown that LEA and
SRFEA assuming associated plasticity yield similar results when
employing a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. However, as shown
by Tschuchnigg et al. (2015a), large differences between the effec-
tive friction angle 40 and the effective dilatancy angle j0 may lead to
numerical problems, making a clear definition of the FoS difficult.
Alternatively, rigorous upper and lower bounds of the FoS are
obtained from finite element limit analysis (FELA). As FELA is
restricted to associated plasticity, Davis (1968) proposed reduced
strength parameters in combination with an associated flow rule to
simulate non-associated soil behavior. In the case that the defini-
tion of safety is based on the strength parameters, the approach by
Davis (1968) leads to (very) conservative results. Therefore,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2018.09.002
1674-7755 Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1092 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101

Tschuchnigg et al. (2015b) developed two modifications. These Table 1

modified approaches are discussed briefly in the following. Comparison of different procedures (Tschuchnigg et al., 2015b).
Furthermore, the paper tries to illustrate the significant advantage Davis b j0 Note
of adaptive mesh refinement, namely the significant reduction of procedure
the required degrees of freedom to obtain accurate FoSs. Davis A Constant, Constant 4* could theoretically
bfailure ¼ f ð40 ; j0 Þ be smaller than j0
Davis B Varied, Varied 4* cannot be smaller
2. Theory bfailure ¼ f ð40failure ; j0failure Þ than j0
Davis C Varied, Constant 4* could theoretically
bfailure ¼ f ð40failure ; j0 Þ be smaller than j0 ,
2.1. Strength reduction method with displacement-based finite but b increases with
element method (strength reduction finite element analysis) decreasing 40 . Limit b  1

The displacement-based finite element code Plaxis (Brinkgreve

et al., 2016) enables the definition of the FoS by means of effec-
tive friction angle 40 and effective cohesion c0 . The method of
strength reduction was first used by Zienkiewicz et al. (1975). This
is achieved by simultaneously reducing tan40 and c0 until no equi-
librium can be satisfied. A Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion is
assumed and it is emphasized that this procedure only works for
these types of (linear) failure criteria. The corresponding formula-
tion of the FoS is shown in Eq. (1), where the subscript “mobilized”
denotes the strength quantities at failure. For associated plasticity,
both the effective friction angle 40 and the effective dilatancy angle
j0 are reduced at the same time. For a non-associated flow rule, the
dilatancy angle j0 is kept constant as long as the reduced effective
friction angle 40 is larger than j0 . At the point where the reduced
friction angle 40 equals the effective dilatancy angle j0 , both values
are reduced simultaneously (Brinkgreve et al., 2016).
tan40 c0
FoS ¼ 0 ¼ 0
tan 4mobilized cmobilized
Additionally, calculations with a user-defined strength reduc-
tion procedure are performed. During this SRFEA, tan40 , tanj0 and c0
are simultaneously reduced, as shown in Eq. (2). As a consequence,
the degree of non-associativity (L ¼ 40 e j0 ) is also affected by the
reduced value of j0 . For the case where j0 ¼ 0 as well as associated
plasticity (j0 ¼ 40 ), the standard and user-defined strength reduc-
tion procedures are the same.
paper, a strength reduction procedure considering an adaptive
mesh refinement is used as described in Sloan (2013).
2.3. Non-associated plasticity
A SRFEA performed with non-associated plasticity may lead to
numerical instabilities without a clearly defined failure surface.
This is particularly the case for materials with high friction angles
(40 > 40 ) in combination with steep slopes (a > 40 ), where
different failure mechanisms are kinematically possible leading to
an alternating FoS (Tschuchnigg et al., 2015a).
FELA is restricted to associated plasticity (j0 ¼ 40 ), since stress
and velocity characteristics in a plastic field are equal only for the
case of an associated flow rule (Davis, 1968). Therefore, reduced
effective strength parameters (c*, 4*) are used in combination with
an associated flow rule to model non-associated behavior (j0 s 40 ).
(1) Davis (1968) suggested using reduced strength parameters (see
Eqs. (3) and (4)) based on the given effective strength parameters
40 , c0 and j0 (strength reduction factor b). Thereby, the amount of
Eq. (5) diminishes with decreasing effective dilatancy angle j0 and
an increasing degree of non-associativity L ¼ 40 e j0 (Tschuchnigg
et al., 2015b). The b value given in Eq. (5) is denoted in the following
as Davis procedure A.
c* ¼ bc0 (3)

tan40 tanj0 c0 tan4* ¼ b tan40 (4)

FoS ¼ ¼ 0 ¼ 0 (2)
tan 40mobilized tan jmobilized c mobilized
cosj0 cos40
bfailure ¼ b0 ¼ (5)
1  sinj0 sin40
Based on the fact that the original approach by Davis (1968)
2.2. Factor of safety obtained from finite element limit analysis
leads to very conservative results if the FoS is expressed by
means of the strength parameters of soil, two modified procedures
FELA has some tradition in geotechnical engineering, but only in
were developed (Tschuchnigg et al., 2015c). Both modified ap-
recent years tools that are applicable in practice have been devel-
proaches are still conservative compared to the non-associated
oped (Chen, 2007). Based on the upper and lower bound theorems
SRFEA, but yield a better agreement with SRFEA than the Davis
of plasticity, the prediction of various stability questions is possible
procedure A (original approach).
by calculating the failure load from above and below (see e.g.
The enhanced procedures Davis B and C require an iterative
Lyamin and Sloan, 2002a,b). Thereby, the difference between the
procedure for determining the reduced strength parameters c* and
two bounds is an indication of the error in the solution. A limit
4*. In Davis B, the b value is determined based on the “actual”
analysis enables the definition of the FoS without performing an
effective strength parameters, because the degree of non-
elasto-plastic analysis. The limit theorems of plasticity can be
associativity L ¼ 40 e j0 changes during the procedure. As shown
applied to any solid body if the material shows perfect plasticity
in Eq. (6), the FoS of the previous iteration step reduces the “actual”
and no hardening or softening is considered. The initial stresses and
dilatancy angle j0 as well as the “actual” effective friction angle 40
deformations do not affect the plastic limit (failure load). Further-
simultaneously. The bfailure value is calculated until no change in the
more, the yield surface is assumed to be convex and characterized
FoS occurs.
by an associated flow rule (j0 ¼ 40 ) (Chen, 2007).
If the FoS is expressed as the ratio of collapse load to actual load, h  i h  i
j0 0
cos arctan tan
FoS cos arctan tan4
FoS
a single pair of upper and lower bound calculations leads to the bfailure ¼ h  i h  i (6)
j0 0
required result. In slope stability analyses, however, the FoS is 1  sin arctan tan
FoS sin arctan tan4
FoS
defined according to the strength parameters of the soil. In this
 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101 1093

The enhanced procedure C (Davis C) differs from Davis B, by

assuming a constant dilatancy angle j0 during the iterations, as
shown in Eq. (7) (Tschuchnigg et al., 2015b). It is important to note
that as long as the dilatancy angle j0 is zero, procedures B and C are
the same. Table 1 underlines the most important differences be-
tween Davis A, B and C.
h  0
i
cos arctan tan4
FoS cosj0
bfailure ¼ h  i (7)
sinj0
0
1  sin arctan tan4
FoS
Fig. 2. Failure mechanism obtained with SREFA (j0 ¼ 0 ).

is activated) followed by a construction phase (sections 1 and 2 are

activated) and a 40 /c0 reduction. For case 2 (excavation), the initial
3. Numerical studies
stress distribution (K0 procedure) is determined by activating sec-
tions 1, 2 and 3. Subsequently, section 3 is deactivated (excavation)
3.1. Influence of initial stress field on strength reduction finite
followed by a SRFEA. The K0 procedure of case 3 is performed on the
element analysis
final geometry (sections 1 and 2 are activated) followed by a plastic
nil-step (i.e. a plastic calculation starts without defining any loads
In geotechnical engineering, it is a recurring question that stress
in order to guarantee continuous horizontal stresses) and a
field exists in situ. Related to that question, it is often necessary to
strength reduction. In the first calculation phase of case 4 (sections
make assumptions for numerical analyses. The study discussed in
1 and 2 are activated), gravity loading is applied and subsequently a
the following tries to clarify to what extent the initial stress dis-
SRFEA is executed.
tribution does affect the FoS when performing SRFEA considering a
Table 2 shows the evaluation of FoS for all four cases. It becomes
Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. The finite element code Plaxis
obvious that the initial stress situation has no influence on the FoS
(Brinkgreve et al., 2016) is used for all displacement-based finite
(FoS ¼ 1.53) when using a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. The
element analyses discussed in this section.
different stress paths of point A (located inside the failure surface,
The example to be analyzed is a simple homogeneous slope
see Fig. 2) end up at the Mohr-Coulomb failure line of the same FoS
shown in Fig. 1, with a slope height H equal to 5 m and a slope angle
although they have completely different origins (see Fig. 3).
a of 26.6 (1:2). In SRFEA, the mesh refinement is performed
manually with 15-noded triangular elements. The analyses
consider drained conditions and a linear elastic-perfectly plastic
constitutive model with a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. The
homogeneous slope is characterized by a unit weight
gunsat ¼ 16 kN/m3, an effective friction angle 40 ¼ 30 and an
effective cohesion c0 ¼ 2 kPa. The dilatancy angle j 0 is set to zero. To
investigate the influence of initial stresses on the FoS, four cases are
investigated. Both the initial geometry and the method (K0 pro-
cedure or gravity loading) to compose the initial stresses are varied.
In cases 1e3, the initial stresses are assumed as s0v ¼ gz and s0h ¼
K0 s0v , whereby the K0 values vary between 0.25 and 0.4 (K0 pro-
cedure). Referring to the geometry (see Fig. 1), the K0 procedure in
case 1 (fill) is performed only for the base layer (see Fig. 1, section 1

Fig. 1. Finite element mesh used for SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ).

Table 2
FoS obtained with SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ).

Case FoS

K0 ¼ 0.25 K0 ¼ 0.4

Case1 (fill) 1.53 1.53

Case 2 (excavation) 1.54 1.53
Case 3 (nil-step) 1.53 1.53
Fig. 3. Stress paths of point A for case 1 (fill), case 2 (excavation), case 3 (nil-step) and
Case 4 (gravity loading) 1.53 (no K0 value needed)
case 4 (gravity loading).
1094 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101
3.2. Influence of adaptive mesh refinement on the factor of safety
The example studied considers again the stability of a homo-
geneous slope under drained conditions. The dimensions of the
slope are identical to those of the previous study presented in
Section 3.1. In all analyses, a linear elastic-perfectly plastic consti-
tutive model with a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and the soil
parameters gunsat ¼ 16 kN/m3, gsat ¼ 18 kN/m3, 40 ¼ 30 and
c0 ¼ 2 kPa are used. In the first calculation phase, gravity loading is
applied and subsequently the strength reduction is performed.
Strength reduction finite element analyses assuming associated
plasticity (40 ¼ j0 ) are performed using Plaxis 2D and Optum G2
(Krabbenhøft et al., 2016) with 6- and 15-noded elements, thus
quadratic shape functions and shape functions of 4th-order,
respectively. Sensitivity analyses are performed by increasing the
number of triangular elements with and without adaptive mesh
refinement. A detailed description of the formulation used for the
adaptive mesh refinement was given in Sloan (2013).
The failure surface passes through the toe of the slope and does
not extend below this point (see also Fig. 2). Fig. 4 shows that the
mesh refinement as well as the order and number of elements
strongly affects the computed FoS. As is shown in Fig. 4, both finite
element codes, namely Plaxis 2D and Optum G2, are in good
agreement when performing SRFEA without adaptive mesh refine-
ment. The results obtained with SRFEA using 6-noded elements lead
to significantly higher FoSs compared to those with higher-order
elements. Furthermore, it is shown that the effect of adaptive mesh
refinement is limited when using 15-noded elements (at least in
combination with an associated flow rule). For the example consid-
ered, about 500 15-noded triangular elements without adaptive
mesh refinement are required to give accurate estimates of the safety
level (FoS ¼ 1.6). The advantage of the adaptive mesh refinement
becomes clear when using 6-noded elements. Approximately 400
Fig. 4. Factors of safety obtained from SRFEA (40 ¼ j0 ) with different numbers of el-
ements (with and without adaptive mesh refinement).
elements are needed to reach a value of FoS ¼ 1.62. On the other
hand, about 1500 elements are needed without adaptive mesh
refinement to reach the same value (see Fig. 4). It should be noted
that approximately 1500 6-noded elements in combination with an
adaptive mesh refinement are required to achieve a good agreement
with elements using a shape function of 4th-order.
It should be noted that both finite element programs (namely
Plaxis 2D and Optum G2) lead to approximately the same compu-
tation time when performing SRFEA without adaptive mesh
refinement. Thereby, analyses based on 15-noded elements take
approximately 3e4 times longer compared to those with 6-noded
elements. Furthermore, it is noticeable that SRFEA performed in
Plaxis 2D using a shape function of 4th-order becomes slightly
faster compared to Optum G2 with increasing number of elements
(difference < 20%). If the number of elements is kept constant, an
additional mesh refinement (with 3 iterative procedures) raises the
computation time approximately by 60%e90%, while the precision
of the solution increases (see Fig. 4). When comparing the results of
SRFEA (performed with and without adaptive mesh refinement)
which lead to the same FoS, those calculations based on mesh
adaptivity are approximately 30%e50% faster and the number of
elements is reduced significantly (see Fig. 4).
In the following, the same slope is used but several horizontal
water tables with a vertical distance L from the crest are consid-
ered (see Fig. 5a). The z-axis is defined positive downwards. The
problem can be seen as an approximation of a slow drawdown
process where the water table is initially defined above the crest
(L/H ¼ 0.2) and is lowered to the base (L/H ¼ 1). A similar study
was performed by Griffiths and Lane (1999). The soil parameters
remain unchanged, with the difference that a non-associated flow
rule with j0 ¼ 0 is assumed for all strength reduction finite
element analyses. To study the effect of mesh density on the FoS,
about 300 and 1500 15-noded elements are used (without adap-
tive mesh refinement).
Furthermore, FELA is performed to show the better agreement
of Davis B, compared to Davis A, when dealing with non-associated
SRFEA. It is also illustrated to what extent the adaptive mesh
refinement influences the error margin between upper and lower
bound calculations. FELA is carried out without an adaptive mesh
refinement and 4000 elements as well as approximately 1000
triangular elements in combination with an adaptive mesh
refinement. Examples of the meshes used in the FELA are shown in
Fig. 5a and b.
Fig. 6 shows the FoSs obtained from SRFEA, and it follows that
the mesh density has a strong influence on the FoS. The L/H ratio
Fig. 5. Finite element meshes for upper bound of FELA (a) with adaptive mesh
refinement using approximately 1000 elements and (b) without adaptive mesh
refinement using approximately 4000 elements.
 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101 1095

equal to 0 based on the coarse mesh (approximately 300 elements)

Table 3
yields a FoS of 1.87. If a higher mesh density of 1500 15-noded el- Factors of safety obtained from FELA (with and without adaptive mesh refinement)
ements is assumed, the FoS decreases by approximately 3% to 1.81. for L/H ¼ 0.
The results also confirm that Davis A gives a conservative esti-
Case Davis FoSUB FoSLB FoSMean
mate, whereas the results based on the enhanced procedure Davis procedure (j0 ¼ 0 ) (j0 ¼ 0 ) (j0 ¼ 0 )
B are in much better agreement with the ones obtained by SRFEA.
With adaptive Davis A 1.61 1.63 1.62
As shown in Section 2.3, Davis B and C provide the same results for mesh refinement Davis B 1.76 1.79 1.78
j0 ¼ 0 . (w1000 elements)
It is obvious that the upper and lower bound analyses with and Without adaptive Davis A 1.58 1.66 1.62
without adaptive mesh refinement provide approximately the mesh refinement Davis B 1.73 1.81 1.77
(w4000 elements)
same mean values (see Fig. 6). Nevertheless, it should be noted that
the adaptive mesh refinement with approximately 1000 elements Note: FoSUB is the upper bound of the FoS, FoSLB is the lower bound of the FoS, and
FoSMean is the mean of FoSUB and FoSLB.
leads to much smaller differences between upper and lower
bounds compared with those analyses based on approximately
4000 elements without adaptive mesh refinement. Table 3 sum- Table 4
Soil properties: Comparison of studies 1 and 2.
marizes the FELA results obtained for L/H ¼ 0. The differences of
upper and lower bounds using no adaptive mesh refinement and Study Constitutive gunsat c0 (kPa) 40 ( ) j0 ( )
about 4000 elements range between 4.6% and 5.1%. The gap be- model (kN/m3)

tween the upper and lower bounds can be reduced to approxi- 1 Mohr-Coulomb 16 2 25, 30, 35, 40 40 , 40 e5n, 0
mately 1.5% by using an adaptive mesh refinement. These results 2 Mohr-Coulomb 16 0, 2, 5, 10 30 40 , 40 e 5n, 0
show clearly the significant advantage of using an adaptive mesh Note: n is a variable to reduce the dilatancy angle from j0 ¼ 40 to j0 ¼ 0 at intervals
refinement. of 5 .

Fig. 6. Factors of safety obtained from SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ) and FELA (with and without adaptive mesh refinement) for different L/H ratios.
1096 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101

3.3. Comparison of standard and user-defined strength reduction
finite element analyses with Davis procedures A, B and C
The following studies are performed to show how the effective
friction angle 40 , the degree of non-associativity L ¼ 40 e j0 and the
effective cohesion c0 influence the different Davis approaches and
non-associated SRFEA. SRFEA is performed in Plaxis 2D, while
Optum G2 is used for FELA (Davis A, B and C). Emphasis is put on the
comparison of Davis B and C. Davis A and C (mean values of upper
and lower bounds) will be compared with the standard strength
reduction as implemented in Plaxis 2D (Brinkgreve et al., 2016),
where the dilatancy angle j0 is kept constant until the reduced
effective friction angle 40 equals j0 . Since in a user-defined SRFEA,
the effective friction angle 40 and the dilatancy angle j0 are reduced
simultaneously from the beginning, Davis B is compared with this
enhanced SRFEA.
The studies are performed using the slope shown in Fig. 1. Again,
the drained conditions and linear elastic-perfectly plastic material
behavior with a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion are considered. The
results presented in Section 3.2 prove that about 1000 15-noded
elements are needed to give accurate estimates of the FoS. In the
first calculation phase, gravity loading is applied followed by a
plastic nil-step and a strength reduction. On the other hand, in FELA
(Davis A, B and C), the mesh refinement is performed adaptively as
part of the analysis with approximately 1000 elements.
Two different studies are performed. The homogeneous slope of
study 1 is characterized by a unit weight of gunsat ¼ 16 kN/m3 and
an effective cohesion c 0 of 2 kPa. The dilatancy angle j0 is reduced
from the associated case (j0 ¼ 40 ) at intervals of 5 , until zero. This is
done for the effective friction angles 401 ¼ 25 , 402 ¼ 30 , 403 ¼
35 and 404 ¼ 40 . On the other hand, study 2 investigates how the
cohesion influences the difference between Davis calculations and
non-associated SRFEA. For this purpose, the effective friction angle
40 ¼ 30 is kept constant, while the effective cohesion varies be-
tween 0 and 10 kPa (see Table 4).
The calculations for study 1 show that standard and user-
defined strength reduction finite element analyses as well as
Davis B and C give the same results for a dilatancy angle of j0 ¼ 0
(see Fig. 7a). Furthermore, it was found that, with an increasing
degree of non-associativity (L ¼ 40 ej0 ), the differences between all
Davis approaches and SRFEA (standard and user-defined) become
larger. Fig. 7a clearly indicates that with increasing effective friction
angle 40 , those differences become significantly larger for Davis A,
while differences for Davis B and C do not increase considerably. A
general conclusion from Fig. 7a is that the difference between the
original Davis approach (Davis A) and the enhanced procedures
(Davis B and C) increase with increasing 40 and L.
The differences between Davis B and the user-defined SRFEA as
well as the differences between Davis C and the standard SRFEA are
in the same order of magnitude. This is illustrated in Fig. 7b, where

Fig. 7. Study 1: (a) Standard SRFEA, user-defined SRFEA, and Davis A, B and C results for different values of L and 40 ; and (b) Differences between Davis A and standard SRFEA, Davis
B and user-defined SRFEA as well as Davis C and standard SRFEA for different values of L and 40 .
 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101 1097

Fig. 8. Study 2: (a) Standard SRFEA, user-defined SRFEA, and Davis A, B and C results for different values of L and c0 ; and (b) Differences between Davis A and standard SRFEA, Davis
B and user-defined SRFEA as well as Davis C and standard SRFEA for different values of L and c0 .

Fig. 9. Reinforced embankment: Cross-section (unit: m).
the blue and green dashed lines show a good match. The black
dashed lines (reference) represent the standard and user-defined
SRFEA results, from which the differences of Davis A (¼ standard
SRFEA e Davis A), Davis B (¼ user-defined SRFEA e Davis B) and
Davis C (¼ standard SRFEA e Davis C) are subtracted. To give a
better overview of the results, different reference values for the
calculations (based on an effective friction angle 40 equal to 25 ,
30 , 35 and 40 ) are chosen but do not represent FoSs. Those
differences between SRFEA and Davis approaches are illustrated
exemplarily by arrows in Fig. 7a and b.
Study 2 shows similar trends as study 1. Keeping the effective
friction angle 40 constant and varying the effective cohesion c0 be-
tween 0 and 10 kPa lead to the conclusion that with increasing
cohesion, Davis A becomes more conservative compared to the
standard strength reduction. It can be seen in Fig. 8a that Davis B and
C are not strongly affected by the variation of the cohesion. Again, the
differences between Davis B and user-defined SRFEA as well as the
differences between Davis C and standard strength reduction are

Table 5
Reinforced embankment: Soil properties for SRFEA and FELA.

Material gunsat (kN/m3) gsat (kN/m3) Eref

50 (MPa) Eref
oed (MPa) Eref
ur (MPa) m c0 (kPa) 40 (  ) j0 ( )
Backfill material 21 21.5 40 40 120 0.5 5 37 0, 40
Sandy top layer 21 21.5 40 40 120 0.5 0 35 0, 40
Gravel layer 21 21.5 25 25 75 0.5 0 35 0, 40
Clay layer 20 20.5 30 30 90 0.8 30 20 0, 40
1098 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101
Fig. 10. Reinforced embankment e safety analysis: (a) Incremental shear strains obtained with SRFEA; (b) Shear dissipation obtained with FELA e upper bound (Davis B); and (c)
Failure mechanism obtained with LEA.
Fig. 11. Reinforced embankment: Factors of safety obtained from FELA with different
element numbers.
approximately the same. Despite the change of non-associativity L,
the green and blue dashed lines in Fig. 8b do match well.
4. Applications
4.1. Reinforced embankment
4.1.1. Problem description
This section deals with the application of the original and
modified Davis approaches to an embankment, which is reinforced
by 6 horizontal geotextile layers at the toe. As shown in Fig. 9, the
four soil layers, namely backfill material, sandy top layer, gravel
layer and clay layer, define the soil layering. A horizontal water
table is defined on the top of the sandy layer. The three underlying
layers are fully saturated and are assumed drained.
For SRFEA and FELA, a 35.5 m long and 20.6 m high model, with
an embankment height of 5.6 m, is defined. The cross-section is
characterized by an embankment inclination of about a ¼ 35 . The
underlying geogrid layers are 5 m long with a vertical distance of
about 0.3 m. Consequently, the height of the reinforced area is
1.5 m.
Table 6
Reinforced embankment: FoS obtained with LEA, SRFEA and FELA.
FoS, LEA (Morgenstern and Price, 1965) FoS, SRFEA (without adaptive
mesh refinement, w10,000
elements)
j0 ¼ 40
1.72 1.66
The hardening soil model (Schanz, 1998) and the hardening
Mohr-Coulomb model (Doherty and Muir Wood, 2013), both
assuming a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, are used for SRFEA in
Plaxis 2D and FELA using Optum G2, respectively. The material
parameters used are listed in Table 5. The reinforcements are
modeled by means of linear-elastic geogrid elements with a stiff-
ness EA of 10,000 kN/m. This study excludes any external load, thus
only self-weight is acting.
In SREFA, the discretization of the domain is carried out
manually using 15-noded elements. Since the failure plane de-
velops behind the reinforcements, that area shows a higher mesh
density (see Fig. 10a). The final model consists of 10,913 elements. It
should be noted that for all strength reduction finite element an-
alyses carried out in Plaxis 2D, the initial stresses are calculated
with the K0 procedure, where no embankment is present. In the
following, the construction of the embankment is modeled in one
step, followed by the 40 /c0 reduction. The analyses are performed
for both associated (j0 ¼ 40 ) and non-associated (j0 ¼ 0 ) flow rule.
In FELA, safety analyses are performed with and without adaptive
mesh refinement for different numbers of elements. As shown in
Fig. 11, the difference between the upper and lower bounds reduces
significantly once the adaptive mesh refinement is used. Therefore,
all calculations discussed in Section 4.1.2 consider an adaptive mesh
refinement procedure in combination with approximately 1000
triangular elements. Fig. 10b shows exemplarily the result of the
automatic mesh adaptivity procedure for an upper bound analysis.
In addition to the standard upper and lower bounds, FELA (using
j0 ¼ 40 ), Davis A with j0 ¼ 0 and Davis B with j0 ¼ 0 are calculated.
Additionally, LEA using the Morgenstern and Price (1965) method is
also performed and compared with the results obtained with
SRFEA and FELA.
4.1.2. Comparison of the results
The SRFEA of the reinforced embankment confirms again that
the flow rule has a significant influence on the FoS, where associ-
ated plasticity (j0 ¼ 40 ) leads to a FoS value of about 1.66 and the
zero dilatancy case (j0 ¼ 0 ) reaches a FoS value of 1.55 (see
Table 7
Reinforced embankment: Comparison of Davis A and B with SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ).
Davis procedure Difference ¼ [FELA
(Davis) e SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 )]/FELA (Davis)  100 (%)
FELA (Davis A) 14.8
FELA (Davis B) 4
FoSMean, FELA (with adaptive mesh refinement, w1000 elements)
j0 ¼ 0 j0 ¼ 40 Davis A (j0 ¼ 0 ) Davis B (j0 ¼ 0 )
1.55 1.66 1.35 1.49
 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101 1099

Fig. 12. Upstream slope: Cross-section (unit: m).

Table 8
Upstream slope: Soil properties for SRFEA and FELA.
0
Material gunsat (kN/m3) gsat (kN/m3) E (MPa) Eref
50 (MPa) Eref
oed (MPa) Eref
ur (MPa) m c0 (kPa) 40 (  ) j0 ( )
Moraine layer 22 23 40 40 120 0.5 10 31 0, 40
Fractured rock layer 22.5 23 50 50 150 0.5 15 31 0, 40
Intact rock layer 22.5 23 5000 25 35 0, 40

Table 6). On the other hand, it can be seen that the FoSMean value
((FoSLB þ FoSUB)/2) of the FELA with adaptive mesh refinement
matches remarkably well with the SRFEA (j0 ¼ 40 ) results.
Comparing Fig. 10a and b, one can see that also the failure planes of
SRFEA and FELA are in good agreement. The very fine mesh (see
Fig. 10b) in the region of the slip surface (when using FELA) is a
consequence of the adaptive mesh refinement. On the other hand,
for all strength reduction finite element analyses, approximately
10,000 triangular elements with a shape function of 4th-order are
used to reach a comparable FoS value. Due to the inherent as-
sumptions of LEA, this method yields a different failure mechanism
(see Fig. 10c) and a much higher FoS equal to 1.72. By comparing the
FoSs of Davis A and B with that of the SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ), it is obvious
that both approaches are conservative, but Davis B predicts FoS
values in better agreement with SRFEA (see Table 6). This is also
highlighted in Table 7 where one can see that Davis A deviates
about 14.8% compared to the SRFEA, and Davis B on the other hand
shows only a difference of about 4%.
4.2. Upstream slope
4.2.1. Problem description
This boundary value problem deals with a reinforced upstream
slope next to a reservoir. The section investigated, with a total

Fig. 13. Upstream slope: Finite elements meshes used for (a) SRFEA and (b) FELA.

Fig. 14. Upstream slope: Failure mechanism obtained in (a) SRFEA and (b) FELA.
1100 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101
Table 9
Upstream slope: FoS obtained with SRFEA and FELA.
FoS, SRFEA (without FoSMean, FELA (with adaptive mesh refinement,
adaptive mesh w1000 elements)
refinement,
w10,000 elements)
j0 ¼ 40 j0 ¼ 0 j0 ¼ 40 Davis A (j0 ¼ 0 ) Davis B (j0 ¼ 0 )
1.38 1.28 1.39 1.19 1.26
Table 10
Upstream slope: Comparison of Davis A and B with SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ).
Davis procedure Difference ¼ [FELA
(Davis) e SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 )]/FELA (Davis)  100 (%)
FELA (Davis A) 7.6
FELA (Davis B) 1.6
height of approximately 33 m, can be divided into an area below the
berm disposed about 26.6 (1:2) towards the horizontal, and an
area above the berm with a slope angle of 30 . The slope below the
berm is lined with a sealing foil, thus loaded additionally by water
in the reservoir. At the berm, a pile trestle consisting of two thread
bars (GEWI system) connected with a ridgepole is installed. As
shown in Fig. 12, the upper section is separated by an intermediate
berm. The soil stratigraphy is characterized by three layers (see
Fig. 12). The top layer (light blue) represents moraine material.
Underneath, marked in light green and brown, fractured and intact
rock layers are present, respectively. The water level can be found
primarily in the fractured rock layer. In the slope, an inclined water
table is defined, as shown in Fig. 12.
In this study, the moraine layer as well as the fractured rock layer
is described by the hardening soil model. For the deeper intact rock
layer, a Mohr-Coulomb model is utilized. Table 8 gives an overview of
the input parameters. The calculations assume drained conditions
and ignore any external loads. Furthermore, the reservoir is assumed
to be emptied in order to generate the worst-case scenario. Instead of
modeling the two GEWI piles with structural elements, the area
between the piles is defined with an increased effective cohesion c0
equal to 18.5 kPa. All the other soil properties in the region of the pile
trestle correspond to those of the fractured rock layer.
The finite element code Plaxis 2D is used for all strength
reduction finite element analyses discussed in this section. About
8932 15-noded elements are used to compute FoSs. Referring to
Fig. 13a, the cut slope and the region of the pile trestle are object of
local mesh refinements. For all finite element limit analyses, the
mesh refinement is performed adaptively using approximately
1000 3-noded elements in Optum G2 (see Fig. 13b). Strength
reduction finite element analyses assuming associated (j0 ¼ 40 ) and
non-associated plasticity (j0 ¼ 0 ) are compared with FELA as well
as Davis procedures A and B (Davis B equals Davis C for j0 ¼ 0 ) (see
Fig. 14).
4.2.2. Comparison of the results
The results show that SRFEA (j0 ¼ 40 ) and FELA fail in an anal-
ogous manner and present a good agreement in the FoS (see
Table 9). The SREFA assuming associated plasticity yields a FoS
equal to 1.38, while the corresponding FELA computes a lower
bound FoSLB of 1.37 and an upper bound FoSUB of 1.4. Referring to
Table 9, the mean value of the upper and lower bounds leads to a
FoSMean of 1.39. Again, it becomes clear that by using an adaptive
mesh refinement with approximately 1000 3-noded elements, ac-
curate estimates on the FoS are possible.
By comparing the FoSs of Davis A and B with a non-associated
SRFEA, it is obvious that both methods are conservative, but
Davis B offers a better agreement with the calculation of Plaxis 2D
(see Table 10). Whereas Davis procedure A deviates about 7.6%
compared to the SRFEA (j0 ¼ 0 ), Davis B shows only a difference of
about 1.6%.
5. Conclusions
The results presented in this paper confirm that the LEA, FELA
and SRFEA assuming associated plasticity are in good agreement.
SRFEA using non-associated plasticity (j0 s 40 ) yields lower FoS
values compared to LEA. It is also shown that determination of the
initial stress field does not influence the computed FoS when using
a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. FELA presented confirms that, by
using an adaptive mesh refinement, it is possible to remarkably
reduce the number of elements. For all considered finite element
limit analyses including applications of boundary value problems,
about 1000 elements in combination with an adaptive mesh
refinement lead to accurate FoSs. Detailed numerical studies have
been performed with SRFEA and FELA and have proven that an
increasing effective friction angle 40 , effective cohesion c0 and de-
gree of non-associativity L lead to larger differences between Davis
A and the standard SRFEA. Since the dilatancy angle is kept con-
stant in a standard strength reduction technique, a user-defined
SRFEA has been used, where the friction angle and dilatancy
angle are reduced simultaneously from the beginning. Due to the
fact that the difference between the friction angle 40 and the
dilatancy angle j0 defines the amount of non-associativity, the
latter is considered to be more appropriate. It is suggested to use
the enhanced procedure in displacement-based finite element
analyses. It should be noted that the differences between Davis B
and the user-defined SRFEA as well as between Davis C and the
standard SRFEA (constant j0 ) are approximately the same. The re-
sults presented highlight that in Davis B and C, the degree of non-
associativity L has a noticeable influence on the computed FoSs,
whereas changes in the effective cohesion c0 show negligible effect
when using the enhanced Davis procedures.
An important outcome of the studies is that the proposed
modified Davis procedure B in combination with the FELA seems to
compute more realistic FoS than the original Davis (1968) approach,
but is still slightly conservative. However, the enhanced Davis
procedure is also suitable in combination with SRFEA to avoid nu-
merical instabilities when dealing with non-associated plasticity.
Conflicts of interest
The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of
interest associated with this publication and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influ-
enced its outcome.
Nomenclatures
a Slope angle
b Strength factor according to Davis (1968)
b0 Strength factor according to Davis (1968) at initial
conditions
bfailure Strength factor according to Davis (1968) at failure
gunsat Bulk unit weight
gsat Saturated unit weight
s0 h Horizontal effective stress
s0 v Vertical effective stress
40 Effective friction angle
40 failure Effective friction angle at failure
40 mobilized Mobilized friction angle during SRFEA
4* Reduced effective friction angle according to Davis (1968)
 S. Oberhollenzer et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 1091e1101 1101

j0 Dilatancy angle Tschuchnigg F, Schweiger HF, Sloan SW, Lyamin AV, Raissakis I. Comparison of
finite-element limit analysis and strength reduction techniques. Géotechnique
j0 mobilized Mobilized dilatancy angle during SRFEA 2015a;65(4):249e57.
j0 failure Dilatancy angle at failure Tschuchnigg F, Schweiger HF, Sloan SW. Slope stability analysis by means of finite
L Amount of non-associativity, L ¼ 40 e j0 element limit analysis and finite element strength reduction techniques. Part l:
c0 Effective cohesion numerical studies considering non-associated plasticity. Computers and Geo-
technics 2015b;70:169e77.
c0 mobilized Mobilized effective cohesion during SRFEA Tschuchnigg F, Schweiger HF, Sloan SW. Slope stability analysis by means of finite
m Power for stress dependency of stiffness element limit analysis and finite element strength reduction techniques. Part II:
Eref
50 Reference secant modulus from triaxial test back analyses of case history. Computers and Geotechnics 2015c;70:178e89.
Zienkiewicz OC, Humpheson C, Lewis RW. Associated and non-associated visco-
Eref
oed Reference tangential modulus from oedometer test plasticity in soil mechanics. Géotechnique 1975;25(4):671e89.
Eref
ur Reference unloading/loading modulus
EA Extensional stiffness
FELA Finite element limit analysis Simon Oberhollenzer is presently working as a PhD stu-
dent in the Department of Soil Mechanics, Foundation
H Slope height Engineering and Computational Geotechnics at Graz Uni-
K0 Coefficient of lateral earth pressure versity of Technology, Austria. He accomplished his MSc
LEA Limit equilibrium analysis degree in Geotechnical and Hydraulic Engineering from
Graz University of Technology in 2017. His master thesis
FoS Factor of safety was devoted to numerical studies on slope stability anal-
FoSLB Factor of safety obtained with lower bound analysis ysis. Currently, his research interests mainly cover slope
FoSMean Mean factor of safety obtained with lower and upper stability analysis and ground investigation using cone
penetration test (CPT) as well as flat dilatometer test
bound analysis (DMT).
FoSUB Factor of safety obtained with upper bound analysis
SRFEA Strength reduction finite element analysis

References Franz Tschuchnigg studied civil engineering in Graz and

worked in the Computational Geotechnics Group of Graz
Bishop AW. The use of the slip circle in the stability analysis of slopes. Géotechnique University of Technology since 2006. He is expert in 3D
1955;5(1):7e17. finite element modeling. His PhD research topic was
Brinkgreve RBJ, Kumarswamy S, Swolfs WM. Plaxis 2D 2016 user manual. Delft, related to numerical analysis of deep foundations focusing
Netherlands: Plaxis bv; 2016. on the improvement of the embedded pile formulation
Chen WF. Limit analysis and soil plasticity. J. Ross Publishing; 2007. p. 1e122. and pileesoil interactions. At the moment, his main
Davis EH. Theories of plasticity and failure of soil masses. In: Lee IK, editor. Soil research interests are related to the performance of SRFEA.
mechanics: selected topics. New York, USA: Elsevier; 1968. Since 2007, he was also involved in consulting and carried
Doherty JP, Muir Wood D. An extended Mohr-Coulomb (EMC) model for predicting the out numerical analysis for a couple of highrise buildings in
settlement of shallow foundations on sand. Géotechnique 2013;63(8):661e73. Europe.
Griffiths DV, Lane PA. Slope stability analysis by finite elements. Géotechnique
1999;49(3):387e403.
Janbu N. Application of composite slip surface for stability analysis. In: Proceedings of
the European conference on stability of earth slopes, vol. 3. Stockholm: Inter-
national Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering; 1954. p. 43e9. Prof. Helmut F. Schweiger is Head of the Computational
Krabbenhøft K, Lymain AV, Krabbenhøft J. OptumG2: theory. Newcastle, Australia: Geotechnics Group at the Institute of Soil Mechanics,
Optum Computational Engineering; 2016. Foundation Engineering and Computational Geotechnics
Lyamin AV, Sloan SW. Lower bound limit analysis using nonlinear programming. In- of the Graz University of Technology in Austria. He has
ternational Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 2002a;55(5):573e611. over 30 years of experience in developing and applying
Lyamin AV, Sloan SW. Upper bound limit analysis using linear finite elements and numerical methods in geomechanics. He studied Civil
nonlinear programming. International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Engineering at the Graz University of Technology and ob-
Methods in Geomechanics 2002b;26(2):181e216. tained his PhD degree form the University of Wales,
Morgenstern NR, Price VE. The analysis of the stability of general slip surfaces. Swansea, UK. His main research interests are the devel-
Géotechnique 1965;15(1):79e93. opment of multilaminate models for soils and the assess-
Schanz T. Zur modellierung des mechanischen verhaltens von reibungs materialen. ment of the influence of the constitutive model for solving
Stuttgart, Germany: University of Stuttgart; 1998 [in German]. practical problems, in particular deep excavations, deep
Sloan SW. Geotechnical stability analysis. Géotechnique 2013;63(7):531e71. foundations and tunnels.