In this paper, the thinwalled cylindrical shell with bolted connections was taken as the research object, and the finite element model was established based on ANSYS. The natural characteristics of the system were analyzed by the contactbased prestressing method, which was verified by experimental results. The influence of rotating speed and bolt preload on the inherent characteristics of the system was analyzed. The results show that, with the increase in the speed and preload, both the connection stiffness and system stiffness increase, and the first six natural frequencies of the system increase continuously. When the speed is low, the preload has a greater impact on the natural characteristics of the system. However, when the preload is large enough, the speed dominates the change of the natural frequencies.