Effective Width of Steel Deck-Plate in Bridges

The problem of the effective width, which is encountered in the design of steel plate deck bridges, is presented and examined theoretically. The differential equation of the correlated plane state of loading in the deck-plate is obtained taking in consideration the effect of the mutually perpendicular stiffeners. A solution for the equation is given and the effective width is calculated. Formulas and tables of the effective width are presented for the case of sine-wave loading on the main girders. The behavior of the effective width of the steel deck-plate is presented showing that in addition to the usual factors governing the effective width of isotropic flanges, the ratio of the cross-sectional area of the longitudinal stiffeners to the cross-sectional area of the skin-plate has a significant effect.