Introduction

This is a summary of how to run the FDS Verification Suite. The Suite consists of input files that are designed to test the functionality and accuracy of various FDS routines. These cases are run and processed with each maintenance release of FDS.

Starting with FDS 5.4, you must run the entire FDS Verification Suite to compile either the FDS Verification or User Guide. These Guides contain plots and Smokeview pictures that are not committed to the Repository and must be generated after running the cases.

All of these input files are located in the Verification folder of the FDS-SMV repository. The routines used to automate this process are mainly C-shell scripts that are appropriate for a unix or linux operating system. Running and processing the Verification Suite on a Windows PC would require the various scripts to be converted to ".bat" files.

Required Software

• Subversion client
• Fortran 90 compiler (needed only if you are running and processing cases)
• Matlab
• LaTeX, preferably PDF-LaTeX.

Initial Tasks

The process has a number of prerequisite steps:

1. Check out the entire FDS-SMV Repository. The intstructions can be found at http://code.google.com/p/fds-smv/wiki/Accessing_Subversion_Repository
2. Compile FDS, or install the pre-compiled executable somewhere. If you install the executable in a directory other than that contained within the C-shell scripts (see Run_All.csh in the Verification directory), you will have to make the appropriate adjustments to the scripts.
3. Compile the short Fortran programs that are located in the Utilities/Data_Processing folder of the Repository. These executables may stay in this directory.
• ifort -o ns2d ns2d.f90
• ifort -o radiation_box radiation_box.f90
• ifort -o radiation_plane_layer radiation_plane_layer.f90
4. Make sure that the files in the Verification folder of the Repository called Run_All.csh and Process_All.csh are exectuables. Otherwise, just type: chmod +x *csh

Running the Cases

1. cd to the Verification folder of the Repository.
2. Open the text file called Run_All.csh and make sure that the various folders and scripts exist.
3. At the command prompt, type: ./Run_All.csh &
4. Go home and get a good night's sleep.

Processing the Output

Note that there are three steps in processing the output of the Verification Suite: a few scripted Fortran programs that are needed to do some extra post-processing on the FDS output files, a series of scripted Smokeview sessions to generate the pictures, and a Matlab script to generate the plots included in both the FDS User and Verification Guides.

1. cd to the Verification folder of the Repository.
2. Type: ./Process_All.csh &
3. Within the same folder, type ./Process_Pictures.csh (or on a PC Process_Pictures.bat). This should automatically generate the Smokeview pictures. Make sure that you are either working on a PC or a Linux/Unix platform with a windowing system running. The automated Smokeview scripts require that the pictures be rendered on the screen, as opposed to a background batch process. Note that 'cascade' takes awhile to complete. The way we typically execute this process at NIST is to run and store all the output on our Linux cluster and then run the Process_Pictures.bat script from our PC accessing the FDS data through Samba. This requires that we are connected to our Samba server and that we map a network drive (right-click on My Computer and then Map Network Drive...) to our repository on the Linux cluster. Once this is done you can open a Command Prompt and cd into the mapped drive to run the bat file.
4. Start up Matlab and cd to the Utilities/Matlab folder of the Repository.
5. Type: master_verification_script at the Matlab command prompt.

Compiling the FDS Verification and Users Guides

1. cd to Manuals/FDS_5_Verification_Guide and at the command prompt type: pdflatex FDS_5_Verification_Guide.tex, or invoke the PDFLaTeX option from your LaTeX editor/processor.
2. Type: bibtex FDS_5_Verification_Guide, noting that the .tex is not needed by bibtex, or click on the BibTeX icon in your LaTeX editor/processor.
3. Type: pdflatex FDS_5_Verification_Guide.tex twice again to fully establish all the cross-linked references.
4. Inspect the various plots and graphs in the Guide for accuracy.
5. Repeat the above process for the FDS User Guide.