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Unit of PSTRESS
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2026 1:03 pm
by nz72lary
Dear VASP-Team,
I'm doing calculations at higher pressures and use the PSTRESS tag for this. On the Wiki Page it says: "The unit of PSTRESS is kB".
Can you please confirm that with "kB", "kbar" = 100 MPa is meant?
Thank you in advance!
Re: Unit of PSTRESS
Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2026 1:22 pm
by michael_wolloch
Hi nz72lary,
And welcome to the VASP Forum!
The unit kB indeed is kilobar, equivalent to 100 megapascals.
While you are correct that kbar would be much clearer, kB is used consistently in VASP output files and documentation, and changing it to kbar would potentially break a lot of output parsers. Thus, I think it is best to stay with kB and risk occasional confusion with KiloByte.
Let me know if that solves all your issues, and I can lock the topic,
Cheers, Michael