Purpose <p>The literature survey reveals that studies investigate the transient behavior of graphene platelets reinforced metal foams (GPLRMF) plates under moving load. Especially, the current research on moving-load excited dynamic problems only involves perfect structures, ignoring the influence of initial geometrical imperfection. To fulfill the gap, this paper attempts to solve this problem.</p> Methods <p>Considering initial geometrical imperfection, the first-order shear deformation theory is employed to deduce the governing equations, in which the material attributes are evaluated through the model of Halpin–Tsai. Taking the simply support boundary condition into account, the motion equations are discretized with the guidance of Galerkin principle and solved with the aid of the Runge–Kutta method.</p> Results and Conclusions <p>To obtain a more accurate numerical solution, a convergence verification on the central dynamic deflection of the plate is conducted. Detailed parametric analyses are developed to reveal the impacts of material parameters, initial geometrical imperfection, moving load parameters, temperature rise and elastic foundations. It can be found that, for the relation curve between the maximum deflection and moving speed, the dynamic deflection will decrease as moving speed increases. Furthermore, the dynamic deflection will decrease with the increase of initial geometric imperfection. The present study provides an effective theoretical support for the analysis of nonlinear dynamic response of plates under moving load.</p>