ABSTRACT
A first step towards solution of Slope stability problem was done by Coulomb, who established that the failure surface was a plane, and derived a method for soil pressure computations. In numerous versions, the method is an approximated engineering tool for assessment of slope stability. Sometimes one faces the slope stability problem for a predetermined plane slip surface (a dam with a clayey screen, interlayers of weak soil at foundation etc) and in this case one also has engineering guidelines at hand. In stability computations for a failure slice it is convenient to include water on the upstream and tailwater sides as a material with zero internal friction and cohesion, i.e. the failure surface should be continued in water with inclusion of the weight of the slices consisting exclusively of water (-6.5). In stability computations for the upstream slope, the case of rapid fall of water level is of interest.
