Abstract Two finite element approaches are implemented to account for the rotational non-linearities involved in dynamic analysis of rotating bladed-disk assemblies: the distributed mass (DM) and lumped mass (LM) approaches. The DM approach treats the structure as a continuum with mass points uniformly distributed in the structure, while the LM approach treats the structure as a collection of discrete concentrated mass points. These two approaches are used here exclusively for considering rotational effects in the dynamic analysis and should not be confused with the consistent and lumped mass approaches for representing the mass matrix. It has been found that the analysis results obtained using the DM and LM approaches are in close agreement for test problems studied. In addition, for transient analysis using explicit time integration, the LM approach has been found to be significantly more efficient than the DM approach.