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Indoor swimming pools have high water and energy (electricity and natural gas) consumption levels due to the need to provide suitable thermal comfort conditions (temperature and relative humidity) to its occupants and to counterbalance losses (evaporation, ventilation, etc.). In Portugal, most of the swimming pool facilities belong to the municipalities and their operation represent a considerable financial burden. This work intent to characterize and benchmark the energy (electrical and thermal) and water consumption of five sport complexes with indoor swimming pools, located in two cities of the Centre of Portugal. The four most commonly performance indicators used in the literature were calculated and analyzed according to the operating time and services. Some measures are suggested to enhance the energy efficiency as well as to reduce the consumptions.

Abstract. Detonation velocities and critical diameters of nitromethane (NM) based explosive mixtures sensitized by glass microballoons (GMBs) were measured. The control parameters of this experimental study were the nature and diameter of the confinement, the GMB size and their mass fraction.As GMB mass fraction is increased, the diameter effect curves (detonation velocity versus reciprocal charge diameter) become less and less dependent upon the confinement nature and size. Furthermore the shape of these curves, which for low concentration of GMBs is concave downward like that of heterogeneous explosive, tends to be straight like that of homogeneous explosives for larger GMB mass fractions.The critical diameter is found to be strongly dependent on GMB size and mass fraction. The mechanism of NM sensitization by GMBs is qualitatively analyzed and estimations of the effect of GMB concentration and size on the critical diameter of the mixtures agree with the experimental results.

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