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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. 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 or *BUCKLE or *MODAL DYNAMIC 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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