Abstract: According to the principle of minimum potential energy, finite difference schemes for small deflection bending of thin elastic plates with edge beams are obtained with FDM based on the principle of variation.The schemes depend only on mesh points in plates .They avoid problems with fictitious mesh points.Difference equations are programed with MATLAB and numerical simulations are shown.

Key words: thin plate, bending problem, beam, finite-difference method based on principle of variation, numerical simulation