Official Release of FDS/Smokeview 3

[Kevin McGrattan <kevin.mcgrattan@nist.gov>]

All

We've put up on the web site (fire.nist.gov/fds) the
official version 3 release of
FDS and Smokeview. Everybody should update to this version
as soon as possible. For
PC users, you can download the self-installation file and
run it. Those who have
installed FDS before need not reboot their computers. The
only thing that rebooting
does is to add the fds directory to the computer's search
path, not necessary since
this path has already been established. Try out the new
version (fds3) on the silly3
test case just to make sure everything copied over
correctly.

We will maintain version 3 differently than version 2. With
version 2, we immediately
made changes to the physics of the model after releasing it,
so that users of v2 
who found bugs had no choice but to move up to the ``test''
version that we were
working on. Obviously, this is a problem since the test
version is always riddled
with more bugs. This time with v3, we will maintain it by
fixing the occasional bug,
but not making any substantial change to the physics. Thus,
the ``official'' version
3 will be what is on the web site now, and minor fixes will
be put into, say a
version 3.01, 3.02, etc, that will sit on the FTP site.
Links to the FTP site can
be found at the web site. Read the FAQs for more details.
Those reporting bugs will
be pointed to the FTP site, where a new fds3.exe can be
downloaded. Think of these
new executables as patches. Note that when running fds3, you
will see the version
number and compile date printed out at the top of the
diagnostic output. When
reporting bugs, mention these two numbers.

Right now we are working on a parallel version of FDS. This
new version will 
eventually evolve into FDS 4. It will use MPI (Message
Passing Interface) to 
enable FDS to be run on multiple computers with distributed
memory. Our goal is
to be able to run in parallel, but also still run fast on a
single CPU. As part of
our investigation of the World Trade Center collapse, we
will be validating FDS
against large compartment fire tests that will be performed
here at NIST in the
spring.

Kevin


-- 
Kevin McGrattan
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8663
Gaithersburg MD 20899-8663

Telephone: (301) 975 2712
FAX:       (301) 975 4052