Fire Dynamics Simulator

Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a computational model for the fire-driven fluid flow. Basically, it relies on the idea that fire can be studied numerically.

As such, the utility solves numerically a form of the Navier-Stokes equations fitting a low-speed and thermally-conducted flow, with a focus on the smoke and heat conveyance characteristic to fires.

This is particular to the Hydrodynamic model; however, the combustion model is also included among the features of the utility, just like the radiation transport equation and parallel processing.

Since where’s a fire there’s a smoke, the package is comprised of another utility, called Smokeview, a tool that offers a visualization of the data from Fire Dynamics Simulator. FDS and Smokeview can be used on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms as well as on other operating systems.

Working with both of the tools is far from being a job for the beginner and even average user since the mathematical concepts tackled and used for calculating the data are quite advanced.

However, should you decide to try the application, the developer puts at your disposal thick documentation pages that offer guidance from the basic steps (downloading and installing the tools) to all the stages necessary for building a model and defining the thermal properties of solid objects.

Further on, the documentation pages provide information about ventilation conditions, combustion, radiation and particles and droplets.

Fire Dynamics Simulator works hand in had with Smokeview and using both tools requires advanced mathematical knowledge. On the other hand, less advanced users benefit from plenty of information in order to expand their horizon.