Investigating the nonlinear transient responses of rotating annular plate is a worthy subject in aerospace and aeronautic fields. In this paper, the nonlinear transient response induced by pulse loads for the graphene platelets reinforced metal foams (GPLRMF) annular plate with rotating motion is illustrated by time history curves and phase trajectory. Three-dimensional displacement field is captured by employing the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The modeling accuracy of nonlinear transient response for the annular plate resting on viscoelastic foundation is enhanced by using von-Karm ´ ´ an’s nonlinearity. The assumed mode method is used to solve the highly coupled nonlinear governing equations, and the fourth order Runge-Kutta iterative algorithm is applied to track the nonlinear transient response path. Detailed parametric studies are performed to investigate the effects of initial geometrical imperfection, dispersion and weight fractions of graphene platelets (GPLs), distribution types and coefficients of porosity, geometric dimensions of annular plates, viscoelastic foundation, thermal effect, types and properties of uniformly distributed pulse loads as well as rotating motion on nonlinear transient response of the annular plates. It turned out that, the blast load can significantly affect the dynamic behavior of the annular plate. Additionally, the annular plate with larger initial geometric imperfection has better deformation resistance, and the presence of the rotating motion can increase the maximum vibration amplitude of the annular plate.