Ductility and cross-sectional classification of plate girder with thick flange

Recently, thick flange has been often used in plate girder bridge with a few main girders to carry large bending moment. Since this kind of girder will endure usually to full plastic moment, the enough rotation capacity will be also expected. This paper presents a cross-sectional classification for the plate girder with thick flange, conducting finite element analyses. From the results we propose the new cross-sectional classification for inelastic design, where thinner web will be applicable than that shown in AISI or AASHTO.