Artigos de Revista

The western sector of Ria Formosa, a lagoon system in the south of Portugal, represents approximately 90% of the total tidal prism of the lagoon and includes three inlets. Two sets of field campaigns to characterize the hydrodynamics of this sector in neap and spring tide conditions were conducted in the autumn of 2011 and spring 2012. The main findings related to the inlets hydrodynamics and water exchanges between the lagoon and the ocean along semi-diurnal tidal cycles are presented. To estimate the relative contribution of the three inlets to the water exchanges between Ria Formosa and the ocean, discharges were evaluated hourly along complete neap and spring semi-diurnal tidal cycles and the tidal prisms computed. In addition, two sea level time series measured in Faro-Olhão inlet and Faro commercial pier were harmonically analyzed. The results were compared with previous studies and used to validate the ELCIRC hydrodynamic model. This model provided additional information about the circulation and tidal prisms and distortion inside the western Ria Formosa. This study confirmed the Faro-Olhão inlet as the main inlet in terms of contribution for the total tidal prism. It is shown that the Ancão inlet lost hydraulic efficiency, contributing less than 6% to the total tidal prism in all situations and the Armona inlet gained efficiency in spring tide and lost efficiency in neap tide. Moreover, the Faro-Olhão inlet exhibits flood prisms higher than ebb prisms under neap and spring tides, suggesting a residual circulation towards the Ancão and Armona inlets.

Masonry buildings worldwide exhibited severe damage and collapse in recent strong earthquake events. It is known that their brittle behavior, which is mainly due to the combination of low tensile strength, large mass and insufficient connection between structural elements, is the main limitation for their structural implementation in residential buildings. A new construction system for masonry buildings using concrete blocks units and trussed reinforcement is presented here and its seismic behavior is validated through shaking table tests. Dynamic tests of two geometrically identical two-story reduced scale (1:2) models have been carried out, considering artificial accelerograms compatible with the elastic response spectrum defined by the Eurocode 8. The first model was reinforced with the new proposed system while the second model was built with unreinforced masonry. The experimental analysis encompasses local and global parameters such as cracking patterns, failure mechanisms, and in-plane and out-of-plane behavior in terms of displacements and lateral drifts from where the global dynamic behavior of the two buildings is analyzed comparatively. Finally, behavior factors for the design recommendations in case of unreinforced masonry are also evaluated.

The objective of this paper is the analysis of the state-of-the-art in risk indicators and exposure data for safety performance assessment in Europe, in terms of data availability, collection methodologies and use. More specifically, the concepts of exposure and risk are explored, as well as the theoretical properties of various exposure measures used in road safety research (e.g. vehicle- and person-kilometres of travel, vehicle fleet, road length, driver population, time spent in traffic, etc.). Moreover, the existing methods for collecting disaggregate exposure data for risk estimates at national level are presented and assessed, including survey methods (e.g. travel surveys, traffic counts) and databases (e.g. national registers). A detailed analysis of the availability and quality of existing risk exposure data is also carried out. More specifically, the results of a questionnaire survey in the European countries are presented, with detailed information on exposure measures available, their possible disaggregations (i.e. variables and values), their conformity to standard definitions and the characteristics of their national collection methods. Finally, the potential of international risk comparisons is investigated, mainly through the International Data Files with exposure data (e.g. Eurostat, IRTAD, ECMT, UNECE, IRF, etc.). The results of this review confirm that comparing risk rates at international level may be a complex task, as the availability and quality of exposure estimates in European countries varies significantly. The lack of a common framework for the collection and exploitation of exposure data limits significantly the comparability of the national data. On the other hand, the International Data Files containing exposure data provide useful statistics and estimates in a systematic way and are currently the only sources allowing international comparisons of road safety performance under certain conditions.

A fusão de dados provenientes de diferentes tipos de instrumentos pode dar uma informação mais completa para a monitorização do comportamento de estruturas de engenharia civil, em particular nas pontes de grande vão. O objectivo da fusão de deslocamentos medidos com o GNSS e de acelerações, é tirar partido da precisão conseguida com o GNSS, em baixas frequências, e da grande sensibilidade dos acelerómetros, em altas frequências, e obter uma única série temporal de deslocamentos, longa e de grande resolução. Através dum filtro de Kalman será possível integrar deslocamentos medidos, com uma frequência de amostragem de, por exemplo, 1 Hz, e acelerações medidas, com uma frequência de amostragem de, por exemplo, 100 Hz, de modo a obter uma série temporal de deslocamentos de longa duração e com uma resolução de 100 Hz. Nesta comunicação apresentam-se os resultados preliminares dum ensaio realizado num modelo estrutural simples correspondente a um edifício de três pisos, instrumentado com antenas GNSS da Topcon e acelerómetros da Kinemetrics, modelo Episensor ES-U2, e da Nanometrics, modelo Titan SMA, tendo em vista a futura aplicação desta metodologia em pontes de grande vão.

The European Commission Transport White Paper

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Coastalfloodingduetostormsurgescombinedwithhightidescausesagrowingconcern,andrecentlegislationrequiresthatEuropeanUnioncountriesdevelopinundationmapsfortheareasatrisk.Thispaper describesthemethodologytogenerateinundationmapsanditsapplicationtotheRiadeAveiro,a coastallagoonexposedtoAtlanticstormsurgesthatcanexceed1m.ThemapsarebasedontheapplicationoftheshallowwatermodelSELFE,fordifferentreturnperiodsandscenariosofsealevelrise. Anewapproachtodefinethemodelboundaryconditionsfordifferentreturnperiodsisdevelopedbased onthestatisticalanalysisoftimeseriesfromtidalgauges.Thisapproachconsiderstheeffectofstorm surgesaswellastidesandtheir18.6yearcycle.Theextremelevelsobtainedwiththismethodconvergeforthe20yearsofavailabledataandaremoreaccuratethantheonesobtainedwithtraditionalapproachesforthislimiteddataset.Inaddition,thenewmethodprovidesnotonlytheextremelevels,butalsothetimeseriesthatincludethem,whichareneededtoforcethehydrodynamicmodel. TheresultsshowthatthestormsurgesaffectstheentirelengthoftheRiadeAveiro

Salt-marshes are highly valuable ecosystems due to their role in supporting the aquatic and bird life. Furthermore, manyanthropogenic activities such as agriculture, salt production or aquaculture targets these areas. They also act asprotective barriers to shores, given their ability to dissipate most of the wave and current energy in high tide. Sea levelrise can place these intertidal zones at risk, reinforcing the need to understand their morphosedimentary and dynamicresponse to the variations on the forcing factors, thus allowing for a better management of these environments. Largeexpansions of salt-marshes and tidal flats are among the morphodynamic contents of the Tagus estuary. This studyfocuses on the recent past evolution of Tagus marsh areas in order to understand their geomorphological response tohigher sea level scenarios. Cores were taken in four contrasting high salt-marsh expansions in estuarine margins(Trancão

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Loose deposits (LD) develop and accumulate in drinking water distribution systems' (DWDS) pipes and often lead to discolouration incidents, which are a major reason for customers' complaints. In addition, LD may accumulate contaminants, while discolouration may be accompanied by degradation of the water's microbiological quality. Along with iron oxides, organic compounds are well established as predominant constituents of LD. Even so, the composition and role of the latter remain unknown. Since microbial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are components of iron