Natural frequencies of cylindrical shells with a circular plate attached at arbitrary locations are determined for various boundary conditions and L/D ratios. The semi-analytical finite element method is used for the analysis. A conical shell element with four degrees of freedom per node and two nodes per element is used. For clamped-clamped and simply-supported boundary conditions the plate is attached at the center of the shell. For a clamped-free boundary condition the plate is at the free end of the shell. The effects of plate thickness and L/D ratio of the shell on the frequencies of the shell-plate combination are investigated. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.