Abstract：Limit equilibrium slicing methods have been widely used for assessing the stability of natural and man-made slopes. Many methods have been developed so far. They involve various assumptions with respect to the inter-slice forces which lead to different results. In order to get rid of these inconsistencies，attempts is made to incorporate the commonly used slicing methods into a generalized frame work. However，what is the most reasonable result is still unknown. Therefore，a generalized frame work is proposed to find a reasonable bound of solutions of slicing methods for both the two-dimensional and three-dimensional cases. By analyzing the influences of various conditions on the results of stability analysis，the existence and uniqueness of the safety factor are discussed. Analytic formulas of the safety coefficient under different conditions are established. In addition，variation formulas of the safety coefficient are obtained for determining a proper bound of the safety factor.
