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Analysis of institutional authors

Montalvá, JmAuthor

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October 30, 2024
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The Malveira fire test: Full-scale demonstration of fire modes in open-plan compartments

Publicated to: FIRE SAFETY JOURNAL. 108 1-20 - 2019-01-01 108(), DOI: 10.1016/j.firesaf.2019.102827

Authors:

Hidalgo, Juan P.; Goode, Tristan; Gupta, Vinny; Cowlard, Adam; Abecassis-Empis, Cecilia; Maclean, Jamie; Bartlett, Alastair I.; Maluk, Cristian; Montalva Subirats, José Miguel; Osorio, Andres F.; Torero, Jose L.
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Affiliations

TAEC - Author
UCL, Dept Civil Environm & Geomat Engn - Author
Univ Edinburgh, BRE Ctr Fire Safety Engn, Sch Engn, Inst Infrastruct & Environm, Edinburgh EH9 3FB - Author
Univ Politecn Valencia, Campus Vera - Author
Univ Queensland, Sch Civil Engn, Brisbane - Author
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Abstract

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 the University of Edinburgh. This experiment focuses on the fire dynamics in large open floor plan compartments. Results from this test provide relevant data for defining design fire input methodologies applied to compartments typically found in tall buildings. The test showed three distinct fire behaviour modes characterised by the ratio between the velocities of the fire front (V-s) and the burnout front (V-BO); a travelling fire mode with V-s/V-BO approximate to 1, a growing fire mode with V-s/V-BO > 1 and a fully-developed fire mode with V-s/V-BO -> infinity. The three modes are correlated to the incident heat flux onto the fuel surface arising from the resulting compartment energy distribution. The energy distribution depends on the compartment characteristics, the fuel distribution and the resulting fluid mechanics. A description of the instrumentation and analysis of results are presented to support a theoretical justification for the transitions between fire modes.
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Keywords

Architectural designCompartment fire frameworkCompartment firesDynamicsEnclosure fire dynamicEnclosure fire dynamicsEnclosure firesEnergy distributionsFire dynamicsFire testsFiresFluid mechanicsFull-scale demonstrationsHeat fluxLarge scale experimentsLarge-scale experimentsLarge-scalesOffice buildingsTall buildingsTestingTraveling fires

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal FIRE SAFETY JOURNAL due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2019, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 2.76. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 2.68 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-10, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 63
  • Scopus: 67
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-10:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 102.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 101 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/167324
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Australia; United Kingdom.

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Awards linked to the item

This work formed part of the EPSRC funded Real Fires for the Safe Design of Tall Buildings project (Grant No. EP/J001937/1) at the University of Edinburgh. The authors are extremely grateful to EPSRC for funding this work. The authors would like to thank the Bombeiros Voluntarios da Malveira for provision of the experimental building and support during the test. The authors are once again indebted to Rockwool International A/S for providing a significant amount of materials used in this experiment. The authors would like to thank Levantina de Pesaje for their support designing the mass loss system.
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