Nonadditivity of interaction in water trimers

The energy of (H 2 O) 3 has been calculated for 29 geometrical configurations of the trimer using the SCF LCAO MO method and extended as well as minimal basis sets of Gaussian functions. For two configurations two intermediate basis sets have also been tested. The results show the nonadditive component of the interaction energy to be small. They also indicate that fairly reliable results for the trimer can be obtained using minimal basis sets and the counterpoise method to eliminate the basis set superposition error. The nonadditive contribution to the interaction energy is shown to be mainly due to the long‐range induction interaction.