Keywords: railway viaduct, strain, accelerometer, monitoring, structural assessment, steel box, long-term temperature effects.

Monitoring of structural parameters during construction can be an important aid during execution. Especially when studying the long-term behaviour of structures, e.g. build-up of ground pressures or fatigue effects, it can become necessary to resort to monitoring. This research paper discusses two such projects: the "Iris" railway viaduct and the Pede viaduct, both near Brussels, Belgium. This article gives an overview of these experiences and on the lessons learned and structural consequences. When looking at the long-term behaviour of a structure, both temperature changes and strains are important values to register. It seems as if the daily variations of the temperature have an important influence on the structure, even more so than the strain variations measured during static load tests. A conclusion could be that daily temperature variations cannot be neglected in the design although often regarded as a minor load, especially for railway structures where joints are often located further apart. Although this paper reflects the structural assessment of two projects in particular, these techniques are applicable for several other structures and therefore contribute to an improved understanding of both existing structures as well as future design possibilities.

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