The use of discrete models for the dynamic analysis of a contiuum requires the existence of a finite domain with well defined boundaries. When these boundaries do not exist naturally but have to be artificially imposed it may be necessary to apply appropriate conditions on forces or displacements at the boundary nodes to reproduce the physical behaviour of the actual problem. In the solution of soil structure interaction problems these conditions are simulated through the use of transmitting boundaries. In this paper several of these boundaries are evaluated comparing the results they produce in the amplification of seismic motions, the determination of foundation stiffnesses and the structural response. The distance of the boundaries to the zone of interest, the level of excitation (influencing the amount of internal soil damping), the geometry of the problem (finite soil layer versus a half‐space) and the relative frequency of the structure with respect to the soil and the specified motion are all parameters which must be taken into account for this evaluation.
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Roësset et al. (1977) studied this question.