Within the structural mechanics interfaces, you will find loads like Gravity and Rotating Frame. When applied to a set of selected domains, such loads are applied also to lower dimensional objects, for example, a point mass or an added mass on an edge. Such loads are however not applied to mass contributions that belong to global features such as rigid connectors.

When a structure is subjected to an acceleration which is applied to all its support points, then it often more convenient to replace the support acceleration by a an acceleration force, using a Gravity node. In particular, this is necessary when using modal based dynamic analyses, in which non-zero prescribed displacements cannot be used.