- Тhe development of steel bridges after the WWII is characterized by new constructive forms like: steel roadway closed sections, new static systems considering the roadway as a plate rather than a beam grid, new computational methods covering rod statics and statics of continuum, and determining the internal forces of the roadway as internal forces of an orthotropic plate. Moreover, the main girders, the roadway and the horizontal links connect statically and constructively in a whole monolithic structure. Thus, the construction follows better the real distribution of internal forces in steel structure. Loading possibility of high-quality steel material is well used, by which the economic effect of the construction increases significantly compared to the riveted old bridges. The application of this theory in Bulgaria in the period 1976 – 1992 allowed the Bulgarian bridge construction to build several unique by their size steel road bridges of steel orthotropic decks.