ABSTRACTThe present article illustrates a general formulation for a higher-order layer-wise theory related to the analysis of the free vibrations of thick doubly-curved laminated composite shells and panels. The theoretical framework relates to the dynamic analysis of shell structures by using a general displacement field based on the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF), including the stretching effect for each layer. The order of the expansion along the thickness direction is taken as a free parameter. The starting point of the present general higher-order layer-wise formulation is to propose a kinematic assumption, with an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom. The main aim of this work is to determine the explicit fundamental operators that can be used for the layer-wise (LW) approach. These fundamental operators are obtained for the first time by the author and are related to motion equations of doubly-curved shells described in an orthogonal curvilinear co-ordinate system. The free vibration shell and panel problems are computationally solved using the generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) and generalized integral quadrature (GIQ) techniques. The numerical results are compared with recent papers in the literature and commercial finite element codes.