Boundary settings for the seismic dynamic response analysis of rock masses using the numerical manifold method

Summary Aiming to accurately simulate seismic dynamic response of rock masses using the numerical manifold method (NMM), boundary settings must be treated carefully. In this paper, 4 issues in boundary settings are investigated to improve the performance of NMM: (1) Nonreflecting boundaries including the viscous boundary and viscoelastic boundary are considered; (2) A free‐field boundary is incorporated into NMM to accurately simulate external source wave motion; (3) A seismic input boundary is considered, and the force input method is introduced; and (4) A static‐dynamic unified boundary is incorporated for the convenience of transforming displacement boundary into other types of boundaries, such as nonreflecting boundaries and seismic input boundary. Several benchmark problems are solved to validate the improved NMM. Simulation results agree well with analytical ones, indicating that the improved NMM is able to simulate seismic dynamic response of rock masses reliably and correctly.