Natural soil deposits always exhibit strength anisotropy in some degree

however

few slope stability analyses by finite element method have considered the effect of anisotropy until now. Here the variation of soil cohesion with direction of main principal stress was linked into the material library of commercial finite element package ABAQUS

and the shear strength on every integration point was updated dynamically in increment-iteration calculations. Furthermore

the finite element method for anisotropic slope was developed with searching automatically for the factor of stability. Based on numerical simulations performed

it is observed the finite element results are close to that from upper bound limit analyses for homogenous slopes. If soil anisotropy is omitted and the strength from triaxial compression tests is used to evaluate slope stability

it tends to overestimate the safety factors of gentle slopes

especially when the value of cohesion in vertical direction is great. Finite element model with updating strength owns advantage over limit analyses in studying layered slopes.