FDS Verification Process - firemodels/fds GitHub Wiki

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

You must run the entire FDS Verification Suite to compile either the FDS Verification or User's 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 the case input files are located in the Verification folder of the FDS Repository. The routines used to automate this process are either shell scripts that are appropriate for a unix or linux operating system or ".bat" files for a Windows/DOS machine. You may need to modify these scripts to conform to your specific environment. The Windows scripts are rarely used and probably do not work without errors. It is best to run the verification cases on a linux cluster.

Note that this wiki describes how to run the cases that have already been set up. To set up your own case(s), follow the guidance given in the wiki Verification Case Setup Example.

Required Software

  • Git client and an account on GitHub
  • Fortran 2018 compliant compiler (You need this only if you are going to run cases)
  • SLURM for job scheduling. (You only need the job scheduler if you plan to run the verification cases on a cluster.)
  • Matlab
  • LaTeX, preferably PDF-LaTeX.

Initial Tasks

The process has a number of prerequisite steps:

  • Check out or update the following GitHub repositories: firemodels/fds, firemodels/smv, firemodels/out, and firemodels/exp. The instructions can be found at Git Notes Getting Started. Put all the repositories side by side in the same directory.
  • Compile FDS by running the make_fds script in the appropriate folder under Build. You may have to modify the automated scripts if the path to your executable is different.
  • Compile the release version of Smokeview by running the make_smv script in the appropriate folder under smv/Build. If you cannot compile Smokeview because you lack a C compiler, install the latest version of Smokeview onto your machine.
  • (Linux) Make sure that the file in the Verification/scripts/ folder of the Repository called Run_FDS_Cases.sh is an exectuable. Otherwise, just type: chmod +x *sh

Running the Cases

  • cd to the Verification/scripts folder of the Repository.
  • (Linux) At the command prompt, type: ./Run_FDS_Cases.sh. On a Linux or Mac system without queuing software, type: ./Run_FDS_Cases.sh -q none . The utility background is required when using the none queue. To make this utility available, make sure that FDS and Smokeview are installed.
  • (Windows) Edit Run_FDS_Cases.bat and make sure that the various folders and scripts exist. Then type Run_FDS_Cases or double-click on the file.
  • Depending on your system, the cases should run overnight.
  • BUT WAIT! I've launched all these cases on my pc or mac, my machine is crawling, and I still need to get work done. Here's how to kill your cases on macOS. Open a terminal. Type top -o cpu. This will show you the processes that are running. You will see PIDs, etc. You should see several fds_mpi_intel_osx_64 processes (or whatever executable you are running). To kill these type 
    $ killall fds_mpi_intel_osx_64

Processing the Output

Note that there are two steps in processing the output of the Verification Suite: 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.

  • cd to the Verification/scripts/ folder of the Repository.
  • Type ./Make_FDS_Pictures.sh (Linux) or execute Make_FDS_Pictures.bat (Windows). This should automatically generate the Smokeview pictures.
  • Start up Matlab and cd to the Utilities/Matlab folder of the Repository.
  • Type: FDS_verification_script at the Matlab command prompt.

Compiling the FDS Verification and User Guides

  • cd to Manuals/FDS_Verification_Guide and at the command prompt type: ./make_guide.sh
  • Inspect the various plots and graphs in the Guide for accuracy.
  • Repeat the above process for the FDS User Guide.