Free Fire and Smoke Simulation Software — FDS, Smokeview and CONTAM
Performance-based fire safety design — smoke control systems, underground car parks, atriums, tunnels — requires predicting how smoke and heat will spread through a building. The good news: the tool almost the whole world uses for this calculation is completely free, developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Commercial interfaces are built on top of it, but the engine itself is open to everyone.
Fire and smoke simulation
1. FDS and Smokeview
Fire Dynamics Simulator is a CFD model dedicated to fires: smoke and heat spread, temperatures, visibility, CO concentrations and the activation of sprinklers and detectors. Smokeview is its viewer — smoke animation, slice planes and measurement points. It is the basis of most fire engineering reports submitted to authorities.
What's missing: no graphical interface for building the model — the geometry is written in a text file. Interfaces such as PyroSim make this easier, but they are paid. Large runs need a powerful computer and time.
FDS and Smokeview
NIST
Fire and smoke movement simulation in buildings — the world standard in fire safety engineering.
Get it from the vendorAir and smoke movement between spaces
2. CONTAM
Also from NIST: a multizone model that calculates airflow and contaminants between rooms, shafts and floors — stack effect, leakage through openings, stairwell pressurisation. Much faster than CFD and suited to checking smoke control and pressurisation systems across a whole building.
CONTAM
NIST
Airflow and contaminant dispersion inside buildings — ventilation, pressures, smoke and CO2.
Get it from the vendorWhen you need general CFD
OpenFOAM includes solvers for combustion and fire (such as fireFoam), and is used in research and in cases where FDS is limited — strongly curved geometry or coupling with structural problems. It requires significant CFD experience.
OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM Foundation
Comprehensive CFD solvers — flow, turbulence, heat transfer and multiphase. Text-file driven, no GUI.
Get it from the vendorSo which one
Smoke modelling for a fire safety report: FDS with Smokeview. Pressure and smoke movement between floors and spaces: CONTAM. Research or unusual geometry: OpenFOAM. In every case, a fire model's results depend heavily on the chosen fire scenario — the assumptions matter as much as the software.