ePLATE140

ePLATE140 (Version 1.0 beta)

REQUEST A FREE COPY OF ePLATE140! (see form at bottom of this page)

Design, evaluate, and optimize your short span steel plate-girder bridge designs with ePLATE140, an Excel-based tool for designing and refining simple-span composite and noncomposite steel plate-girder bridges.

The Short Span Steel Bridge Alliance’s ePLATE140 is an Excel-based design tool built on the AASHTO 10th Edition specifications.

Key Features:

  • Flexible Bridge Design: Supports two- to four-lane simple-span composite and noncomposite plate-girder bridges with any girder spacing and number of girders, including skewed bridges and variable overhangs.
  • Versatile Decking Options: Accommodates a variety of decking systems, including wood, noncomposite concrete, open steel grid, corrugated metal, and composite concrete decking.
  • Variable Diaphragm Spacing: Allows users to define up to seven unbraced lengths and investigate different diaphragm layouts to optimize the design.
  • Design Optimization: Evaluates more than 5,100 possible plate-girder design combinations across five different web depths based on a user-selected target span-to-depth ratio. Users can investigate alternatives based on girder weight, diaphragm spacing, and available flange and web sizes.
  • Customizable Loading: Includes HL-93 truck, tandem, and lane loading, as well as a user-defined vehicle with up to nine axles. Users can also specify live-load factors, impact factors, and optional lane loading.
  • Comprehensive Checks: Evaluates Strength I/II, Service II, Construction, Fatigue, Deflection, and Shear limit states and provides performance ratios for each design check.
  • Construction Analysis: Considers construction vertical bending and lateral flange bending for each unbraced length to help identify how diaphragm spacing and bracing affect the design.
  • Composite Bridge Design: Performs shear stud strength and fatigue design for composite bridges.
  • Scenario Analysis: Allows users to select and investigate individual plate-girder sections, modify diaphragm spacing or locations, and evaluate alternatives to the lightest-weight solution.
  • Detailed Results: Ranks acceptable plate-girder designs by steel weight and provides performance ratios, design characteristics, fatigue performance, and live-load deflection results.
  • Final Design Information: Provides detailed design checks, dead-load deflections for camber design, abutment reactions, and other information to support review of the selected design.

ePLATE140 is available as a complimentary resource from the SSSBA, providing engineers and owners with a practical tool for evaluating and optimizing short span steel plate-girder bridge designs.

To obtain a copy of the ePLATE140 Excel-based tool, simply complete the form below. After submitting, you will receive an email with download instructions and a password.

ePLATE140 Resources

Important: Unblocking Excel Macros and ActiveX Content

Please Note: If you receive a message in Excel stating “Security Risk – Microsoft has blocked macros because the source of this file is untrusted” and/or “Blocked Content – the ActiveX content in this file is blocked” when attempting to run the Excel form, you will need to unblock the macros by adjusting the file properties as follows:

1. Open Windows File Explorer and go to the folder where you saved the file.

2. Right-click the file and choose Properties from the context menu.

3. At the bottom of the General tab, select the Unblock checkbox and select OK.

For more information, visit Microsoft Support.

If you have additional questions, please email Dan Snyder, SSSBA director, at dsnyder@steel.org 

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