Abstract
The free vibration analysis and design optimization of the rotating composite cylindrical shells with a rectangular cutout are investigated by theoretical method. The Love's thin shell theory is used to derive the frequency equation. The theoretical results are obtained by application of the energy method employing the Rayleigh-Ritz procedure. The used circumferential vibration modes are trigonometric functions, the axial modes are the beam modal functions chosen to satisfy the prescribed boundary conditions. To check the validity, the theoretical results are compared with experimental, FEM and other theoretical results.