Hi,

Thank you Doctor for such great software. I had a quick question about the gravity function and how it operates. I recently had better results when it was set to 0 in my analysis than 9.8. Any Advice would be most welcomed.

Hi,
 
It depends. In cases with very high initial stress?such as very deep tunnels?gravity may have a negligible effect. However, for shallower structures, turning on gravity might be important since it can influence the initial stress distribution in the model.
 
In general, enabling gravity reflects real-world conditions, as gravity is always present. But from a numerical standpoint, we sometimes simplify the model by ignoring it, depending on the context.
 
? Roozbeh