Abstract: Refinement strategy based on the yield function slack and deformation is proposed for the finite-element-based limit analysis (FELA) of Mohr-Coulomb materials. Performance of the local mesh adaptation for the unstructured mesh is examined. The potential slip surface is traced by the adaptive procedure incorporated in the FELA such that the accuracy of the obtained bound solution is dramatically improved. The efficiency and the validity of the proposed strategy are well backed up by results of applications in two classical stability problems in geomechanics, namely, the determination of the bearing capacity of strip footing on weightless soil mass and the critical height of a critical cut. The time required in the computation is provided as well which suggests that the numerical limit analysis is both practical and necessary with the newly developed local mesh adaptation and the second-order cone programming. The obtained results reflect the promising future of the FELA as an alternative to the conventional approaches in the stability analysis in geotechnical engineering.