For cylindrical shells, the closed-form solutions are confined to the specific boundary and/or loading conditions. Though the finite element method is certainly a powerful solution approach for the structural dynamics problems, it has been well known to provide the solution reliable only in the low frequency region due to the inherent high sensitivities of structual and numerical modeling errors. Instead, the spectral element method has been proved to provide accurate dynamic characteristics of a structure even at the ultrasonic frequency region. Since the wave characteristic of a cylindrical shell becomes identical to that fo a flat plate as the frequency increases, an equivalent plate model (EPM) representing the high-frequency dynamic characteristics of the cylindrical shell is introduced herein. The EPM-based spectral element analysis solutions are compared with the known analytical solutions for the cylindrical shells to confirm the validity of the present modeling approach.