FDS Survey and a Minor Change in FDS 4.05

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

All

Thanks to those of you who sent in material about your work
with FDS. As always it was an eye-opener, and very
gratifying to see that the model is being used for many
different applications.

I plan to put the slides up on our website, probably in what
is usually called a "Gallery". I'm not sure how to organize
it, but probably as a series of thumbnails one could click
on. 

If anyone has any strong objection to his/her slides being
put up on the web, let me know ASAP. Some have told me so
already.



Also, some have noticed a problem with the latest release of
FDS (4.05). I changed the logic in the code so that any
character that appears before the & on a given input line
will nullify the line. This is in response to the wide (but
incorrect) assumption that /& will nullify the line, when in
fact, such a trick only works under Windows for whatever
reason. In any case, a tab inserted before the & will
nullify the line. To be on the safe side, put the &XXXX in
the first column, for example:

&OBST XB=.... /

and if you don't want the line to be read, do this:

OBST XB=... /

The & is the magic character. Without it, the line will not
be read. If it is in the first column, followed by the 4
character string, the line will be read.


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