Introduction. Thin-walled structures consisting of thin rods, plates and shells are widely used in modern construction, mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, aircraft manufacturing and other fields.

In the field of engineering structures, there are problems of strength under the action of normal distributed loads on a rectangular plate [6, 7, 8, 9]. In modern structures, elastic isotropic plates under an arbitrary distributed load are of great practical application [10, 11, 12]. In the field of studying the strength and stability of a rectangular plate, it is worth noting the works of S.P. Timoshenko [1], S.A. Ambartsumyan and others. In the field of optimal design of thin-walled structural elements, namely in problems of plate bending, the issues of determining the optimal location of supports have not been sufficiently studied. These issues are considered in the works of V.Ts. Gnuni and A.V. Eloyan [2, 3, 4, 5].

Purpose. The purpose of the work is to determine the optimal location of supports for an elastic rectangular plate in bending problems providing the lowest values of the maximum deflection of the plate.

Materials and methods. An analysis of the dependence of the effect of the optimal location of supports along the length of the plate on the aspect ratio of the plate is presented.

Results. Based on the results obtained, it is possible to significantly improve the performance characteristics of isotropic plates.

Conclusions. Determining the optimal location of supports is of particular interest for studying the strength of structures.

The issues of strength, stability, effective projecting of an elastic plate taking into account the reaction to the seismic impact are confronted in the engineering constructions. In modern structures, elastic isotropic and anisotropic plates, which are under influence of forces, have practical applications.  Determine the optimal parameters of the location of the transverse piers along the length of the rectangular orthotropic piecewise-homogeneous plate, when the plate between and outside the piers is constructed from orthotropic materials with different elastic modules ensuring the minimum value of the maximum bending of plate. Based on the results obtained, it is possible to significantly reduce the weight of elements of thin-walled structures, as well as save materials and energy.