Abstract. Small free low-frequency vibrations of a thin elastic cylindrical shell stiffened by the rings with T-shaped cross-section are analyzed. The narrow rings are considered as circular beams. The wide rings are treated as annular plates stiffened at one edge by a circular beam. In the both cases problem is reduced to solution of the eigenvalue problem for systems of linear differential equations containing a small parameter. By means of various asymptoticapproaches simple approximate formulas for the low frequencies are obtained. These formulas are used for the evaluation of optimal parameters corresponding to the maximal fundamental frequency of the ring-stiffened shell with a given mass.