Methodology for Automation of Continuous Highway Bridge Design

A methodology for complete automation of the conventional highway bridge design for minimum cost is presented. To make such an automated process practical and cost‐effective, efficient interface of three tasks—finite‐element analysis to generate influence surfaces, critical design force computation, and optimization is suggested. Experiments with the program developed based on the suggested methodology indicate that the cost of conventionally designed continuous steel plate girder highway bridges can be reduced by as much as 25%. Approximately 80% of the savings is due to the use of three‐dimensional finite‐element analysis and influence surfaces. About 20% of the savings accrues from the use of optimization. The methodology is general and can be applied to the design of any type of continuous multispan highway bridge.