Juan Patricio Hidalgo

• Fire Safety Engineer - Industrial Engineer
• Lecturer at The University of Queensland

This paper seeks to provide key fundamental knowledge underpinning the use of self-extinction principles as part of a design framework for buildings with engineered mass timber structures. The results from six compartment fire experiments in a cross-laminated timber (CLT) enclosure with different ratios of exposed timber are presented and analyzed...

The use of flame spread models as a tool in fire safety engineering practice is subject to uncertainties arising from the assumptions inherent in the models and the input parameters required to implement them. Research on flame spread continues to add complexity to existing models, which places a greater onus on suitable input parameters to provide...

A series of large-scale experiments has been conducted on under-ventilated mass timber room compartments with kerosene pool fires. To characterise the role of exposed timber walls on the fully-developed phase of the fire, the exposed surface area of mass timber was varied between experiments. Experiments with all timber surfaces protected were comp...

Modelling of flame spread is challenging due to the interactions of the numerous gas and solid-phase processes involved. Models with a high level of complexity incorporate many processes and describe them in great detail. In simpler models, assumptions are utilized to reduce the number of inputs and their associated uncertainties. The use of comple...

This research study presents a heat transfer model aimed at estimating the thermal and physical response of intumescent coatings. The numerical model is inspired by the outcomes of an experimental study focused on analysing the insulating effectiveness of a commercial intumescent coating for a range of heating conditions and initial coating thickne...

This study investigated suspending two fire retardants in sugar-cane bagasse plies used for manufacturing natural fibre reinforced composites. Sugar-cane bagasse was alkali treated, blended with either APP (Ammonium Polyphosphate) or ATH (Aluminium Hydroxide), pressed and dried to form plies. Composites were manufactured using a light resin transfe...

Narrow gaps and cavities present in modern construction systems have been identified as one of the key elements that may enable fire spread after an initial fire ignition. Although there are existing models to predict the exposure of the inner linings of a cavity when exposed to a fire, these models have a significant amount of error or are limited...

Fire safety of modern buildings is crucial and the fire safety design of these buildings has been a challenging task. Large open-plan compartments are commonly designed in modern urbanisation and the fire behaviour in such compartments is different from the traditional knowledge built upon small compartment fire research. Various experimental studi...

The interactions of Calcium carbonate (e.g., eggshell powder) and Lignin with ammonium polyphosphate (APP) when used as fire retardants were investigated. Three mixing ratios ‐ 1:3, 1:1, and 3:1, were used with natural fibre reinforced composites containing a hemp mat and an epoxy matrix manufactured using a light resin transfer moulding (L‐RTM) pr...

Fires in open plan compartments have been the subject of much research over the past decade. This article presents results from an experimental study conducted to explore factors that influence fire dynamics in open-plan compartments with an exposed timber ceiling. A reduced scale testing methodology is proposed and supported by contrasting observe...

When a thermocouple is embedded in a material of lower thermal conductivity, under certain heating or cooling conditions, the presence of the thermocouple can distort the surrounding temperature field. As a result, the measured temperatures may be very different to the ‘undisturbed’ temperatures that would exist without the thermocouple. This study...

Fire safety remains a major challenge for engineered timber buildings. Their combustible nature challenges the design principles of compartmentation and structural integrity beyond burnout, which are inherent to the fire resistance framework. Therefore, self-extinction is critical for the fire-safe design of timber buildings. This paper is the firs...

Developments in the understanding of fire behaviour for large open-plan spaces typical of tall buildings have been greatly outpaced by the rate at which these buildings are being constructed and their characteristics changed. Numerous high-profile fire-induced failures have highlighted the inadequacy of existing tools and standards for fire enginee...

Recent high-rise residential building fires in Australia have instigated national debate over the adequacy of the current regulatory and enforcement framework in ensuring that an acceptable level of fire safety is achieved and maintained throughout the life of a building. While much of the current debate and reform has focussed on the role of the F...

A series of large-scale experiments has been conducted on under-ventilated mass timber room compartments. In order to characterise the influence of the fuel nature and geometry on the fire dynamics, the movable fuel load in the compartments was alternated between a kerosene pool fire and a wood crib, while the number of exposed timber surfaces was...

Limited knowledge of the fire behaviour of bamboo is one of the main reasons bamboo constructions are mostly limited to a maximum of two storeys, and its use as a primary structural component in buildings is restricted. The main objective of this paper is to develop the fundamental groundwork of a performance-based design methodology specific to fi...

Smouldering can progress without flame and destroy timber structures through exothermic solid-phase oxidation reactions of porous char. Anecdotally, smouldering has been reported to be more severe in timber infrastructure treated with chromate copper arsenate (CCA), which is used to improve biological durability. Scientific knowledge on the severit...

Fire safety engineering accreditation and licensing is a subject of much debate in many jurisdictions especially following the Grenfell Tower fire and as a result of the many issues that have been brought to light following similar cladding related fires around the world. It is argued elsewhere that the lack of a well defined accreditation and lice...

External fire spread has the potential to breach vertical compartmentation and violate the fire safety strategy of a building. The traditional design solution to this has been the use of non-combustible materials and spandrel panels but recent audits show that combustible materials are widespread and included in highly complex systems. Furthermore,...

A detailed flammability study of aluminium hydroxide and ammonium polyphosphate used with natural fibre composites manufactured using a resin transfer moulding process was completed. Three concentrations of each retardant (weight fractions of 4.5, 9, and 13.5%) were used in the study. In characterising the composites, thermogravimetric analysis sho...

This manuscript presents tools and data that serve to enable an evaluation of the risk associated with vertical fire spread on buildings. A highly detailed context to cladding fires is described to unveil the complexity and magnitude of the problem and to identify gaps of information. An engineering framework is then developed which delivers requir...

Fuel moisture content is one of the key parameters controlling the flaming ignition of wildland fuel. However, the role of fuel moisture content in assessing the flammability of different fuel curing (dead and live fuel) is still not well understood. This paper presents the results of ignition tests of fuel beds consisting of dead and live Eucalypt...

The feasibility of using sugar-cane bagasse as a reinforcement for natural fiber composites and the performance of these composites under fire conditions was investigated. Plies were manufactured using a process, which involved alkali-treating bagasse, blending, pressing, and drying. Soaking durations of 30 minutes and 24 hours were compared. Compo...

Wood cribs pervade the fire research literature as the chosen fuel load for testing within the built environment. As such, the underpinning knowledge of fire behaviour in compartments was developed from experiments using wood cribs in small compartments. Despite the apparent incomparability of porous fuel-beds such as cribs to real solid fuels in t...

Fire Safety Engineering is often implemented within a framework that requires a recognized and recognizable profession. This article reviews the current state of various attributes that define Fire Safety Engineering as a profession. It is argued that: 1) reliance on prescriptive solutions opens the domain to practitioners that do not possess the r...

The research study presented herein proposes a finite-difference heat transfer model aimed at simulating the thermal and physical response of swelling intumescent coatings during heating. The numerical model is based on the outcomes of a previous experimental study which analysed the effectiveness of thin intumescent coatings for a range of heating...

Fires in open plan compartments have been the subject of much research over the past decade. The impact of exposed CLT on the fire dynamics in such compartments is also receiving a great deal of interest as trends in timber buildings include also open plan buildings. This article presents some initial results from an experimental study which was co...

This report sets a path of commitment among academia, government and industry to deliver a sustainable provision of professionals. Without a sustainable provision of professionals, it will not be possible to professionalise Fire Safety Engineering. Taking into account the needs, constraints and limitations of all stakeholders, the report emphasises...

Knowledge of the first principles defining fire behaviour in large enclosures remains limited despite their common use in modern tall buildings. The evolution of a fire in large enclosures can be defined by the relationship between the flame front and burnout velocities (V_S/V_BO). This relationship can be classified into three distinct fire spread...

Traditionally, the energy efficiency properties of building envelope components are prescribed world-wide using the steady-state “U-value” where the insulation capabilities rely on the thermal conductivity of construction materials only. However, the heat flow through the building envelope is also restricted by the effect of other material properti...

The study presented herein shows an experimental methodology aimed at analysing the effectiveness of intumescent coatings through detailed characterisation of their thermo-physical response for a range of heating conditions and applied initial dry film thickness (DFT). Steel plates coated with a commercial solvent-based thin intumescent coating wer...

An investigation has been conducted into measurement errors associated with the thermal disturbance created when a thermocouple is inserted perpendicular to a thermal wave in a charring material of low conductivity. Laminated bamboo was used as the embedding material because in-depth temperature measurements are of practical relevance to the charac...

The effect of the fuel bed size and moisture content on the flammability of Eucalyptus saligna leaves was investigated using the Cone Calorimeter. Tests were carried out using modified cylindrical shape “closed” sample holders with various diameters. This specific type of sample holder did not allow mass transfer through the sample boundaries and m...

The flammability of materials is a key component of modern cladding fires. Vertical flame spread is a complex phenomenon which is, amongst others, a function of thermal inertia, ignition temperature, and heat release. The recently published Cladding Materials Library contains the needed flammability data to help engineers perform fire risk assessme...

Since Engineered Wood Products (EWPs) have entered the building industry as structural elements, several fire safety concerns have arisen, especially for high-rise structures. The combustible nature of timber suggests that the current models and correlations for compartment fire dynamics might not apply to compartments with timber boundaries, due t...

Our understanding of fire behaviour and heating conditions for load-bearing structural elements was developed from an immense body of research in small under-ventilated compartment fires. Within the context of contemporary architecture, large open-plan compartments are commonplace, yet understanding of the first principles that define fire behaviou...

This paper analyses the different parameters governing fire growth and presents the results obtained for laminated bamboo samples produced from the species Phyllostachys pubescens “Moso”. Parameters such as critical heat flux, temperature for ignition, thermal inertia, mass loss rate and heat release rates are studied herein. Last, the ignition par...

This paper reports on two experiments conducted in a fire resistance furnace to study the differences in the boundary conditions, the fire dynamics and the fuel required to run the furnace when a combustible timber specimen as opposed to a non-combustible concrete specimen is tested. In both experiments measurements were taken in the furnace to eva...

A series of experiments have been conducted to measure the in‐depth heating of laminated bamboo samples subjected to heat fluxes of 5, 10, 30, and 60 kW/m2, either perpendicular or parallel to the grain. These heat fluxes were chosen to induce different phenomena within the material—from inert heating to moisture evaporation, pyrolysis, oxidation,...

Decision-making under risk has been a key issue in systems with a potential for major losses such as chemical process industries (Bhopal-1984, Toulouse-2001) or high occupancy buildings (World Trade Center-2001, Grenfell Tower-2017). For the past decades, engineering disciplines have supported risk management decision-making through the implementat...

Traditionally, bamboo has only been used for structural purposes in low-rise buildings, and one of the main reasons is that the fire performance of load-bearing bamboo structures is not well understood. Before this material can be used in applications where fire safety considerations are critical, for instance in mid-rise buildings or other complex...

In performance-based design, the fire safety strategy needs to assure safe egress times as well as structural integrity. This means that the load bearing elements in a building must not collapse and have to resist the full burnout of the fire. To achieve this for a combustible structure, selfextinguishment must be guaranteed at an early stage of th...

This paper characterises the fire dynamics in the Large-Scale Demonstrator Malveira Fire Test, a full-scale fire experiment carried out in an industrial building in Portugal. The Malveira Fire Test is the second stage in the series of full-scale experimental programmes developed for the Real Fires for the Safe Design of Tall Buildings project at th...

Wildland fires are frequent catastrophic events that lead to the loss of life and economic devastation. Wildfires can involve dead and live fuels; however, only limited research has studied the combustion characteristics of those fuel conditions. This paper studies the burning behaviour of live and dead Eucalyptus saligna leaves using the Mass Loss...

This paper presents a methodology to quantify the convective heat losses in a full-scale compartment fire experiment, and presents an analysis of the key uncertainties in the experimental procedure, with the purpose of reducing uncertainty, and establishing robust error bars to the methodology. Uncertainties in the experimental flow measurements we...

The potential for Engineered Timber Products to self-extinguish is the focus of study of numerous researchers worldwide, but regardless of scientific efforts, a relatively high discrepancy still exists on the definition of the critical threshold for self-extinguish. This discrepancy can be attributed to the variability in the test sample material,...

This paper presents an experimental study on the fire performance of two types of plastic charring insulation materials when covered by a plasterboard lining. The specific insulation materials correspond to rigid closed‐cell plastic foams, a type of polyisocyanurate (foam A) and a type of phenolic foam (foam B), whose thermal decomposition and flam...

In compartment fires with boundaries consisting of exposed mass timber surfaces – for example in compartments with exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls or floors – the thermal penetration depth, i.e. the depth of timber heated to temperatures significantly above ambient behind the char-timber interface, during fire exposure may have a signifi...

In recent time, material developers have created novel construction products such as laminated bamboo lumber, bamboo scrimber, and bamboo oriented strand boards. All of them have similar mechanical material properties to those of engineered timber. Nonetheless, their fire behavior is still not fully understood. This paper presents the results of a...

This article presents the experimental results of stone wool–layered sandwich constructions, with either steel or gypsum claddings, tested under four different heating exposures: 7 kW/m² incident radiant heat flux exposure, 60 kW/m² incident radiant heat flux exposure, parametric time–temperature curve exposure and ISO 834 standard time–temperature...

Fire modelling range from hand calculations using empirical correlations to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, along with increasing complexity and uncertainty. The importance of these models lays in support their outputs provide for decision-making regarding fire safety strategies. The study herein explores uncertainties in modelling...

Four sandwich panel rooms were constructed as prescribed in the ISO 13784-1 test. However, the construction followed normal industry practice, and the panels were also subjected to the kinds of damage typically found in commercial premises, although such damage may not typically be concentrated in such a small room. The fire load was increased to s...

Results are presented from 2 series of ad hoc experimental programmes using the cone calorimeter to investigate the burning behaviour of charring closed-cell polymeric insulation materials, specifically polyisocyanurate (PIR) and phenolic (PF) foams. These insulation materials are widely used in the construction industry due to their relatively low...

A series of compartment fire experiments has been undertaken to evaluate the impact of combustible cross laminated timber linings on the compartment fire behaviour. Compartment heat release rates and temperatures are reported for three configuration of exposed timber surfaces. Auto-extinction of the compartment was observed in one case but this was...

A full-scale experimental series is undertaken to generate a comprehensive data set to study and characterise fires in large open-plan spaces, typical of contemporary infrastructure and Tall Buildings in particular. Developments in the understanding of enclosure fire dynamics for large spaces is intended to complement the knowledge of relatively sm...

A large-scale fire test was conducted on a compartment constructed from cross laminated timber (CLT). The internal faces of the compartment were lined with non-combustible board, with the exception of one wall and the ceiling where the CLT was exposed directly to the fire inside the compartment. Extinction of the fire occurred without intervention....

Within a fast evolving built environment, understanding fire behaviour and the thermal exposure upon structural elements and systems is key for the continued provision of fire safe designs and solutions. Concepts of fire behaviour derived from research in enclosure fires has traditionally had a significant impact in general building design. At pres...

A series of compartment fire tests with multiple exposed timber surfaces have been undertaken to explore the effect of exposed timber on the fire dynamics and the potential for auto-extinction. A test with exposed wall and ceiling achieved auto-extinction after approximately 21 min. Firepoint theory is applied using temperature data at the charline...

This paper details a novel method for quantifying irradiation (incident radiant heat flux) at the exposed surface of solid elements during large-scale fire testing. Within the scope of the work presented herein, a type of Thin Skin Calorimeter (TSC) was developed intending for a practical, low cost device enabling the cost-effective mass production...

A novel performance-based methodology for the quantitative fire safe design of building assemblies including insulation materials has recently been proposed. This approach is based on the definition of suitable thermal barriers in order to control the fire hazards imposed by the insulation. Under this framework, the concept of “critical temperature...

This paper presents the application of a simplified method to estimate pyrolysis rates from rigid closed-cell cellular plastics by means of experimental temperature measurements. These materials are extremely effective in meeting energy efficiency goals in buildings and their safe use should also be enabled and optimised by undertaking comprehensiv...

At present, insulation materials are increasingly used in the built environment due to strict requirements on energy performance [1]; factor that in the recent decades has become one of the primary drivers in building construction aiming at a more sustainable world. These requirements are pushing towards building envelopes with significantly low th...

This paper presents an analysis on the charring rate experienced by a commercial CFRP material used to construct composite pressure vessels for hydrogen storage and transport applications. An experimental programme using the Cone Calorimeter apparatus explored the effect of incident heat flux, sample thickness and rear face boundary condition on th...

This paper presents a fundamental approach to assess the time-to-ignition data from solids, based on an experimental programme for assessing flammability parameters of a carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) used for storage and transport of hydrogen gas. Two different thicknesses representative of real end-use conditions, 4.9 and 29 mm, were test...

Building design can be considered as a multi-objective optimisation problem, in which many criteria are considered for determining the most favourable solution. The application of optimisation techniques requires the design criteria to be quantifiable, which sets the baseline for the application of performance-based designs. Sustainability has beco...

This paper presents a framework for evaluating the thermal behaviour of carbon fibre composite materials, based on a model of minimum complexity able to capture the thermal evolution of the particular material, and estimate rates of mass loss due to pyrolysis. An experimental programme consisting of Cone Calorimeter tests is used to evaluate the pr...

Previous work has demonstrated that the main and initiating hazard from combustible insulation materials is the onset of pyrolysis. This paper presents a methodology for designing thermal barriers for combustible insulation in buildings, which represent the main measure to control this hazard. A series of potential design tools are developed in ord...

This thesis presents a methodology to determine failure criteria of building insulation materials in the event of a fire that is specific to each typology of insulation material used. This methodology is based on material characterisation and assessment of fire performance of the most common insulation materials used in construction. Current method...

A comparative study analysing the performance of different calculation methods for the design of smoke and heat exhaust ventilation systems is presented. The methodology referred to by the Spanish standard UNE 23585:2004 is compared with two computational fire models, OZone and Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The survey is focused on a large single...