Recently, the edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) is proposed based on the Reissner-Mindlin theory, holding the advantage of higher accuracy. In this work, a simple and reproducible experiment is carefully designed and conducted, in which the mode values and shape of a rectangular steel plate is tested by the LMS equipment, to further examine the performance of ES-FME. For comparison, mathematics model of the rectangular steel plate is built, and the mode values and shapes are calculated using FEM、ES-FEM (based on the Matlab) and the business software (Hypermesh). It is found that excellent agreement was achieved between the ES-FEM results and test result. The comparison demonstrates that the ES-FEM improves accuracy of the free vibration analysis of the plate structures.