In the design and construction of plate girder composite bridges, the stresses produced by the placement sequence of deck slab segment is often considered, but not the stresses introduced to the girder by way of concrete shrinkage. For this study, a seven-span continuous four-girder twin bridge was chosen for the analysis. During the construcion phase, strain gages were placed upon the bare steel girders. A three dimesional finite element model of the bridge was developed and a loading sequence equivalent to the placement of concrete was applied. A second loading was applied to the deck elements to simulate the forces generated by the shrinkage of the deck concrete. The dead load stresses resulting from the three dimesional model were then compared to the corresponding results of a two dimensional grillage model analysis. Stresses at each stage of the placement of the concrete deck-slab were found to exceed computed design values. The dead load and shrinkage stresses from the three dimensional finite element model were superimposed to obtain the total or combined stresses. These combined stresses were in good gareement with the stresses from field measurements.