In this research, stress intensity factor of a small radial crack in a rotating thick cylinder made of viscoelastic materials subjected to internal pressure and radial temperature distribution is investigated. The radial crack is assumed to be located at the outer edge of the cylinder. The Zener model (i.e., standard three parameter solid) is applied to simulate the viscoelastic behavior of the cylinder. To obtain the stress intensity factor of the viscoelastic cylinder, the problem of uncracked viscoelastic cylinder subjected to internal pressure and radial temperature distribution is analyzed with plane strain assumptions. Then, the hoop stress distribution is determined. Finally, by assuming the small crack length and applying the superposition method, the problem of cracked viscoelastic cylinder is replaced by the problem of cracked viscoelastic cylinder subjected to determined average stress in the previous step. By employing the proper geometry factor, the stress intensity factor of the viscoelastic cylinder is determined. A parameter study is performed to investigate the effects of various parameters on the stress intensity factor of the cylinder. To validate the results, the problem of viscoelastic cracked cylinder is simplified to an elastic cracked cylinder by neglecting the viscoelastic terms, and the data obtained in the present work are compared with those given in the literature search. The results show that the proposed method is quite capable of estimating the stress intensity factor of small cracks in structures made of viscoelastic materials. A parameter study is performed to investigate effect of various parameters on stress intensity factor of the cylinder. The parameter study shows that a) the stress intensity factor of the viscoelastic cylinder in early moments of loading is higher than its equivalent elastic cylinder, b) increasing the elastic properties of the viscoelastic material results in higher stress intensity factor, and increasing the viscous properties of the material decreases the stress intensity factor.