The article aims to evaluate the Portuguese building stock energy policies and strategy for energy saving in buildings among the EU members. It was found out the average heat transfer coefficients of the main structural elements of Portuguese Buildings and analyzed the U-values of this elements considering different time periods.

The fundamentals of this study were funded by the Agency for Development and Innovation (ADI) and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors (POFC) assigned to the Building Physics and Construction Technology Laboratory with the reference SB Tool SPT_2011_4.

Castability of thin-walled castings is sensitive to variation in casting parameters. The variation in casting parameters can lead to undesired casting conditions which result in defect formation. Variation in rejection rate due to casting defect from one batch to other is common problem in foundries and the cause of this variation usually remain unknown due to complexity of the process. In this work, variation in casting parameters resulting from human involvement in the process is investigated. Casting practices of different groups of casting operators were evaluated and resulting variations in casting parameters were discussed. The effect of these variations was evaluated by comparing the rejection statistics for each group. In order to minimize process variation, optimized casting practices were implemented by developing specific process instructions for the operators. The significance of variation in casting parameters in terms of their impact on foundry rejections was evaluated by comparing the number of rejected components before and after implementation of optimized casting practices. It was concluded that variation in casting parameters due to variation in casting practices of different groups has significant impact on casting quality. Variation in mould temperature, melt temperature and pouring rate due to variation in handling time and practice resulted in varying quality of component from one batch to other. By implementing the optimized casting instruction, both quality and process reliability were improved significantly.