I'd like to put a 4'x8' steel plate across my driveway gutter, so cars don't bottom out in the dip. I've seen 1/2" plates used for this, but at 650+ lbs. (https://www.chapelsteel.com/weight-steel-plate.html), it will be a beast transport. Will a stack of two 1/4" pieces have roughly the same bearing capacity?
Is a stack of steel plate as strong as a single plate of the sum thickness
drivewayload-bearingsteel
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Best Answer
No. When you stack sheets of thin material, their strengths merely add. And a thin sheet is exponentially weaker in bending than a thick one, so added up they are still quite poor. The reason is they are free to slip past each other.
Think about how a wrapped 500-sheet pack of paper is fairly rigid, but once you break the package, the 500 sheets are a wet noodle. The strength is actually in the vertical sides of the package wrapper - and in turn, that vertical is being kept from twisting by the horizontal sheets.
What makes a thick sheet so much stronger is having vertical sides inside the material itself. It's like the material has an internal truss.
The material doesn't even need to be solid, it just needs to be braced - the vertical element carries the weight, and horizontal elements keep the vertical from twisting or buckling.
For instance, you might use a stack of C-channel or Unistrut, with each segment bolted to the next. The reason to bolt is both to distribute the weight and allow them to mutually reinforce each other. Bolts should be well chosen, of comparable material/stretch (e.g. don't use Grade 8 bolts to bolt mild steel), and of suitable interval.