ABSTRACT

Stiffened steel deck plates used for road bridges are normally welded structures. The first deck was constructed in 1936, Fig. 4.3 The plate thickness was 10 mm, the distance between the longitudinal stringers made of 1457 ·152 was 51 em and the distance between transverse beams was 1·09 m. All welds were hand welded fillet welds and took a lot of fabrication time. The main costs arose from the after-weld straightening procedure which was needed because the weld shrinkage was not well controlled in those days.