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This work investigates the linear and nonlinear vibrations of a functionally graded (FG) transversally excited cylindrical shell and in contact along its length with a circumferentially discontinuous elastic base, a configuration frequently found in practical applications. The elastic medium is modeled as a Winkler foundation. The adopted distribution of the FG material along the thickness is similar to that of a sandwich shell, with one material predominating in the core and the other on both faces. First a finite element analysis (FEA) is performed to obtain the natural frequencies and vibration modes of the FG cylindrical shell and a parametric analysis is conducted to study the influence of the contact region and foundation stiffness on natural frequencies and mode shapes. Even though the problem is a symmetric, the cylindrical shell displays a sequence of symmetric and antisymmetric vibrations modes and these modes …