Capturing human judgment in bridge steel plate girder design

The bridge design process employs heuristic procedures that have been modified and improved upon through decades of studying and analyzing in situ bridge construction and trial and error application of empirical data. This study set out to ascertain rules-of-thumb for bridge steel plate girder design.;A literature review and survey were performed and survey results assessed for the purpose of compiling a list of contemporary steel plate girder design rules-of-thumb that are most popular among practicing bridge engineers. Several of these rules-of-thumb were evaluated for performance reliability.;The study demonstrated that there is strong support for the use of rules-of-thumb in bridge design. The results of those rules-of-thumb that were evaluated revealed that these are an effective source of good bridge design guidance and their use may even alleviate the burden bridge designers face with regards to managing the degree of sensitivity outside influences have on the bridge design process.