In order to improve the performance and efficiency of the rotating cylindrical shell structure， reducing its mass has be?come one of the effective ways. In response to this demand， the rotating cylindrical shell structure has a tendency to be designed to vary the thickness along the axial direction， i.e.， variable thickness. The vibration traveling wave characteristics are investigated by using the Chebyshev-Ritz method. The displacement field of the cylindrical shell is expanded in the form of the product of the Chebyshev polynomial and the boundary function. The kinetic and potential energies of the rotating cylindrical shell with variable thickness are calculated based on the Sanders shell theory considering the effects of Coriolis forces and centrifugal forces. Then， the frequency equation of the rotating cylindrical shell with variable thickness is obtained according to the Ritz method. The accuracy of the modeling method is verified by comparing the present results with those in literature， and the convergence of the calculated results is studied. Finally， the free-vibration traveling wave characteristics of the rotating cylindrical shell in different forms of thickness variation are compared， and the effects of parameters such as rotational speed， thickness variation parameters and cylindrical shell aspect ratio on the free-vibration traveling wave characteristics of the rotating cylindrical shell with variable thickness are discussed.