Keywords: FETI, slope stability.

Slope stability, limit load and other geotechnical problems are examples of tasks, where specific numerical methods and models are needed. The source of difficulties stems from the soil behaviour which is very complex and there is usually lack of required input data. This contribution concerns with a special numerical technique for the description of slope stability and eventual landslide based on domain decomposition methods, namely on the FETI method. The main advantage of the FETI method is the presence of rigid body modes of particular subdomains which can be very efficiently used for description of sliding part of soil. The first step in the analysis is a classical slope analysis on a reasonably coarse mesh which should reveal the failure surface. In the second step, finer mesh is used and the mesh is decomposed into subdomains with respect to the failure surface. If the failure surface on the finer mesh coincides with the failure surface obtained on the coarser mesh, the limit load can be determined. Otherwise, the failure surface is changed and new decomposition of the finer mesh is needed. All calculations on the finer mesh can be done in parallel. Special attention should be devoted to load balancing because only few finite elements describe a zone with plastic behaviour while all other finite elements are in the elastic zone. Clearly, the number of arithmetic operations on elements with nonlinear plastic behaviour is much higher than the number of operations on elements where elastic response occur.

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