Abstract—The binding energy per nucleon for nuclear matter, i.e., equation of state (EOS), within the
Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) approach with the consideration of various three-body forces (3BFs)
like the phenomenological 3BF and by adding a contact term to the BHF calculations are considered
at variance densities. The 3BF contribution turns out to be nonnegligible contribution and to have a
substantial saturation effect. The calculations are done utilizing the CD-Bonn and Argonne V18 nucleon–
nucleon (NN) potentials. These NN potentials give great fitting to the deuteron properties and are phaseshift
equivalent. The resultant EOS is compatible with the phenomenological analysis on the saturation
point. It is demonstrated that the 3BF influences significantly on the nuclear matter EOS at high densities.
Moreover, it is necessary for reproducing the empirical saturation properties for symmetric nuclear matter.
The pressure has been also calculated and the suggested approaches reproduce fairly well agreement with
the empirical data. We also examined the maximum neutron star masses which are close to two solar
masses, which is again compatible with recent observational data. Comparison with other microscopic
EOS is presented and discussed.