What is the difference between peak sliding factor & residual

sliding factor?
I need these safety factors for analyzing a dam with Cadam software.
Since you are talking about CADAM i'm supposing that you are working on concrete
gravity dam. If you are looking at a interface like a concrete rock interface it is not a
smooth interface. Consequently will doing shear test for a given compression,on a rock
concrete specimen, at first you are going to break the imperfections on this interface
(roughness). This roughness brings you high shear resistance (peak). If you continue
the test, this roughness could then be broken and the shear resistance will be less
(residual).
What CADAM does is to calculate your sliding safety factor for those two shear
resistance. You then compare those calculated values to ones provided by guidelines.
Logically the expected safety factor for peak resistance should be higher than the one
for residual.
Other phenomenon also exist at these interface such as a chemical link between the
concrete at a lift joint. This is accounted by using cohesion. I'm shore you will find a lot
of literature on that  
If you carry out a direct shear test over a soil sample,or a rock joint you will notice that in
most cases there is a clear peak value for shear resistance, after which the force
decreases and takes a relatively steady value.
The explanation for this can vary:
- the particles in a granular material will orient themselves to favor the shear direction;
- the cohesion provided by more consolidated, rock-like or clay-like soils will be "broken"
- the roughness of the surfaces in the case of rocks will get buffed due to the forces
involved
- others...
Thus it makes sense to provide values for the peak and for the "residual" strength after
this peak has been reached (material has failed). If you are using typical Mohr Coulomb
criterion, this usually translates in values for "c" and "\phi" for the peak, and "c_r" and
"\phi_r" for the residual (note that typically "c_r" is small or negligible, but will depend on
the specific material). The same idea applies to other criteria like Hoek-Brown, etc.
The difference is the same as the difference between peak and residual shear strenght.
Peak shear strenght (or just shear strenght) is the maximum shear stress that can act
on some plane in the UNDISTURBED soil specimen. After the peak strength is reached,
soil still can sustain shear strain, but with lower shear stress response. That lower shear
stress response become constant after some strain level, and it is called residual shear
strength.
So, in undisturbed soil, you have peak slide factor. After shear failure is obtained, soil is
disturbed and has residual slide factor (in general, different than zero, but lower than
peak slide factor).
If you use the residual shear strength parameters c,phi, you will get a lower factor of
safety.The residual parameters are smaller and lead to a more conservative design.