  We establish existence and uniqueness of generalized solutions to the
initial-boundary value problem corresponding to an Euler-Bernoulli beam model
from mechanics. The governing partial differential equation is of order four
and involves discontinuous, and even distributional coefficients and right-hand
side. The general problem is solved by application of functional analytic
techniques to obtain estimates for the solutions to regularized problems.
Finally, we prove coherence properties and provide a regularity analysis of the
generalized solution.
