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### Gravity distributed loading

Gravity loading with known gravity vector is selected by the *DLOAD card, together with the GRAV label. It is characterized by the vector representing the acceleration. The material density is required. Several gravity load cards can appear in one and the same step, provided the element set and/or the direction of the load varies (else, the previous gravity load is replaced). The parameter OP=NEW on the *DLOAD card removes all previous distributed loads. It only takes effect for the first *DLOAD card in a step. A buckling step always removes all previous loads.

General gravity loading, for which the gravity vector is calculated by the momentaneous mass distribution is selected by the *DLOAD card, together with the NEWTON label. For this type of loading to make sense all elements must be assigned a NEWTON type label loading, since only these elements are taken into account for the mass distribution calculation. This type of loading requires the material density (*DENSITY) and the universal gravitational constant (*PHYSICAL CONSTANTS). It is typically used for the calculation of orbits and automatically triggers a nonlinear calculation. Consequently, it can only be used in the *STATIC, *VISCO, *DYNAMIC or *COUPLED TEMPERATURE-DISPLACEMENT step and not in a *FREQUENCY, *BUCKLE, *MODAL DYNAMIC or *STEADY STATE DYNAMICS step. It's use in a *HEAT TRANSFER step is possible, but does not make sense since mechanical loading is not taken into account in a pure heat transfer analysis.

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