The flexural vibration of rectangular plates with point supports

Orthogonally generated polynomial functions are used in the Lagrangian multiplier method to study the free, flexural vibration problem of point supported, thin, flat, rectangular plates. The analysis applies to isotropic and specially orthotropic plates having any combination of clamped, simply supported or free edges with arbitrarily located point supports and to plates which are continuous over line supports parallel to the plate edges. Numerical results are presented for a number of specific problems, illustrating the accuracy and versatility of the approach, and which include natural frequencies and nodal patterns for a point supported plate which is continuous over two perpendicular line supports.