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This paper describes an optimum structural design of a CFRP isogrid cylindrical shell using a genetic algorithm (GA). When the CFRP isogrid cylindrical shell receives a prescribed uniaxial compressive load, an objective is to minimize weight of the CFRP isogrid cylindrical shell subjected to the constraint conditions of no buckling and no material failure. The buckling and material failure loads were approximated by a response surface method combined with partitioning of design spaces and these approximated values were used in the process of GA instead of FEM calculations in order to reduce the computational time. Furthermore, the differences from the constraint conditions of the linear or the non-linear (local) buckling loads were also calculated and their results were compared with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]