Daniel Then how about introducing initial stress by the temperature change, now we call it as an equivalent thermal stress method? Can you explain the principal operating steps? What's the difference between this method and by ISTRESS command? Best Regards! yyt -----Original Message----- From: daniel.shaw@ansys.com To: mems-talk@memsnet.org Subject: RE: [mems-talk] About initial stress in ANSYS Paynee: It appears that you are using the ISTRESS command to apply the initial stress. The ISTRESS command can only be issued once. If you issue it a second time, it will overwrite the previous entry. You need to use the ISFILE command approach. The following steps should work. 1. Apply the first set of initial stresses using the ISTRESS command and write that information to a file using the ISWRITE command. 2. Remove the applied initial stresses. 3. Apply the next set of initial stresses and write them to a different file. 4. Remove the applied initial stresses. 5. Combine the two initial stress files into one file using a text editor. 6. Apply the initial stresses stored in the combined file using ISFILE. One note: in the next ANSYS Release (11.0), we are replacing the ISTRESS commands with a group of initial state commands. With those commands you will be able to directly apply different initial stress values to different groups of elements. So the above process will only be applicable to Release 10.0 and before. Regards.=20 Daniel Shaw ANSYS