Hight total energy

Hello all,

I am trying  to model molecular crystals like 4-iodo-4'-nitrobiphenyl  (INBP) (Fdd2) crystals, starting with a supercell (1*3*3) to calculate  interaction energies between molecules using the module  Discover,  I am  getting very high and positive energies  (total energy of the supercell and the energy of different faces  calculated using the interaction energies between molecules) . I have  used the force field Compass with group based cutoff for both Coulombic  and Van der Waals interactions.

Is this just a problem of convention and this higher (more positive)  value of the energy indicates a more favorable state, means 17846.763816  kcal/mol will be presented as -17846.763816 kcal/mol which is the  correct energy physically for my system?  I have  also studied the influence of the optimization of the structure where  the lattice was kept fixed, and after a successful completion the total  energy was still positive!

can you please tell me what could this energy be interpreted?

FORCEFIELD OPTIONS

__________________

Filename          : compass.frc

Definition name          : cff91

Version              : 2.8

Last modification date      : 3/6/2007

# of automatic parameters : 3

NONBOND ENERGY CUTOFFS

______________________

         Cutoff (A)    Spline Width (A)    Buffer Width (A)

vdW          60.00             20.00             8.00

Coulomb          60.00             20.00             8.00

Summation method for vdW    : Group based

Summation method for Coulomb    : Group based

Dielectric            : 1.00

NOTE: Pressure and energy tail corrections will be added to all subsequent energy evaluations

Energy components             kcal/mol

Total:                    17846.763816

   Internal:               16721.509682

     Bond:                  9573.893440

     Angle:                  178.920925

     Torsion:               7447.386241

     OutOfPlane:               0.002505

     Cross:                 -478.693430

       BondBond:              51.136997

       BondAngle:           -231.007897

       EndBondTorsion:         0.922548

       MiddleBondTorsion:   -566.108165

       AngleTorsion:         277.569763

       AngleAngleTorsion:      4.160814

       BondBond-1-3:         -15.367491

       AngleAngle:             0.000000

   Nonbond:                 1126.000378

     Vdw:                   -739.607305

       Repulsive:           5615.276611

       Dispersive:         -6354.883917

     Electrostatic:         1865.607683

     Hydrogenbond:             0.000000

   Restraint:                 -0.746244

     BtclRestraint:           -0.746244

After minimization:

MINIMIZATION ENERGY SUMMARY
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InitialFinal

------------
Total Potential energy17906.3438375.45931
Internal16717.55777439.85051
bond9573.88526313.143185
angle178.810648219.447534
torsion7444.47687456.73648
out_of_plane0.0025050.731331
cross-479.617545-550.208027
bond_bond51.1250325.729022
bond_angle-231.091265-20.643667
end_bond_torsion0.922548-225.299425
middle_bond_torsion-566.108165-439.07899
angle_torsion276.759737140.425759
angle_angle_torsion4.142058-0.304737
bond_bond_1_3-15.367491-11.035988
angle_angle00
torsion_torsion00
oop_oop00
nonbond1189.83419936.657631
vdW-718.435306-887.356917
vdW_repulsive5515.148875297.42028
vdW_dispersive-6233.58417-6184.7772
electrostatic1908.26951824.01455
hydrogenbond00
restraint-1.04883-1.04883
tethering_restraint00
distance_restraint00
angle_restraint00
torsion_restraint00
oop_restraint00
chiral_restraint00
btcl_restraint-1.04883-1.04883

Thank you in advance.

Regards