Papers

The importance of performance assessment in the water industry is demonstrated bythe increasing number of initiatives taking place around the world. Since the firstinitiatives, which started 15 years ago, the topic has evolved significantly although itstill presents challenges to be tackled.Five years ago, a project on performance assessment of urban infrastructure serviceswas submitted to the European Union under the COST programme. As aconsequence, the COST C18 Action was created. This paper presents the mainconclusions and future key research areas from the project. In the solid waste sector,existing practical experience is less advanced, but methodologies and conclusions willbe equally applicable in performance assessment projects.

As placas de derivados de madeira apresentam-se como produtos de baixa variabilidade e relativa facilidade de manipulação das suas propriedades físicas e mecâ¢nicas, adaptando-se a aplicações como sejam revestimentos de piso, paredes e coberturas ou placas para cofragem. O termo placas de derivados de madeira abarca actualmente um largo conjunto de produtos, caracterizados por serem constituídos por elementos de madeira, um ligante e aditivos (englobando produtos hidrófugos, ignífugos e preservadores). A classificação das placas é realizada de acordo com a dimensão (fibra, partículas, folha) e a geometria dos elementos de madeira que entram na sua composição.

The knowledge of physical and mechanical characteristics of ancient mortars is very important to select repair mortars and to plan adequately any repair intervention. There is a need to define characterization test methods applicable to irregular, friable samples to assess those characteristics. In the present work some results of experimental characterization of Portuguese old mortars are presented and discussed. The test methods used to evaluate the water behaviour and the compressive resistance are described. A comparison with results of compressive strength obtained for new mortars, using the same method and also the methods proposed by EN standards, is used to extract conclusions about the method

Portugal is one of many countries in the world to suffer from coastal erosion. Conventional ways of protecting acoastline appear to entail some disadvantages. An innovative and interesting way of protecting a local coastalzone by means of multi-functional artificial reefs avoids some of them. A multi-functional artificial reef is asubmerged breakwater which protects the local coastline and may also enhance the surfing possibilities and theenvironmental value of the local area. The structure has several positive side-effects: first, it provides anunimpaired visual amenity; second, it offers tourist and economic benefits by improving the surfing. A physicaland numerical study has been undertaken to investigate the influence of the length and submergence of the reef.Preliminary conclusions on the length of the reef suggest that it should be 0.5 times the wave length at the startof the reef, and regarding the submergence they indicate that a value smaller than the offshore wave height isnecessary to get a surfable wave for a reef slope of 1:10.

Digital preservation aims at maintaining digital objectsaccessible over a long period of time, regardless of thechallenges of organizational or technological changes orfailures. In particular, data produced in e-Science domains couldbe reliably stored in today

Nesta comunicação, descreve-se o conjunto de ensaios experimentais, realizados em canalpara simular a propagação de ondas sobre uma praia de inclinação constante (1:20), quetermina numa estrutura de protecção marginal bastante comuns em Portugal Continental.Foram efectuados ensaios com ondas regulares e irregulares, associadas a diferentes alturasde onda e níveis de água, usando diferentes escalas do modelo (1:10 a 1:60). Os resultadosobtidos consistiram nas séries temporais da elevação da superfície livre, da pressão sobre aestrutura, do nível de água atingido sobre a estrutura e do volume galgado na mesma, paradiferentes condições de agitação incidente. Descrevem-se também as análises de dadosrealizadas, quer no domínio temporal, quer no domínio da frequência e apresentam-se osresultados obtidos para um caso de estudo, nas três escalas ensaiadas.Este trabalho pretende contribuir para o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia de modelaçãocombinada proposta no âmbito do projecto CoMIBBS-HYDRALABIII, utilizando em conjuntomodelos numéricos e físicos, para estudos de interacção entre ondas/fundo/estruturas e maisconcretamente no caso do LNEC para avaliar a influência da escala do modelo físico nasimulação da propagação de ondas e evolução morfológica em frente a estruturas deprotecção costeira.

In several cities around the world, measures have been taken to encourage and promote walking and cycling, herein designated as soft mobility modes, which had a high success and contributed to a more sustainable transport system. Within the European context, Portugal has one of the lowest modal split shares of walking and cycling. This is mainly the result of several decades of a transport planning process oriented to road transport infrastructures

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Urban sewer systems constitute a significant patrimony in Europe andworldwide. The structural quality and functional efficiency of sewer systems are fundamentalto guarantee their good performance. These systems are nowadays facing problems ofageing, malfunctioning and overloading caused by deterioration due to long life times,improper maintenance, population growth or catchment increase. In order to effectively planthe operation, maintenance and rehabilitation of sewer systems it is important to providemethods and tools for wastewater utilities in order to support the technical management oftheir systems. The importance of performance evaluation has been growing in most servicesand economic activities in recent years. Decisions must be economically and environmentallysustainable, the customer/consumer must be satisfied by the product or service provided,and legislation becomes ever more stringent and far-reaching. It is increasingly vital for themanagers of an organization to know where, how and when changes must be introduced inorder to reach a better performance. These decisions must be taken based on all theavailable relevant information. The objective of the methodology proposed in this paper is toestablish, at the engineering level, the use of a performance assessment methodologysuitable for the diagnosis, control and selection of solutions for the improvement of technicalprocesses and systems performance. It can be applied to monitoring data or modellingresults, in this case both to extended period operational scenarios and to a range of loadfactors, displaying appropriate dispersion bands (e.g. percentiles). The methodology isobjective-oriented, quantitative and constitutes a standardised approach to technicalperformance assessment of sewerage systems as a useful contribution to the quest for acommon language that would facilitate comparisons, prioritization and the setting of servicestandards. It is based on relevant performance variables or indicators, meaning the quantitywhich translates the system behaviour or properties from the point of view taken intoconsideration (e.g. hydraulic or environmental). It can be applied at catchment or systemelement level, depending on type of available data; performance functions scores the valuesof the performance variables or indicators against a scale of performance; for the elementlevel assessment a generalising function is defined for extending the element-levelcalculation across the system, producing zonal or system-wide diagnoses. Through thismethodology an overall view of system performance can be achieved facilitating performancecomparisons. A case study is presented to illustrate the application.

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