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The effects of geometrical imperfections on the critical load of elastic cylindrical shells when subjected to axial compression are studied through analytical modelling. In addition to distributed defects of both axisymmetric or asymmetric forms, emphasis is put on the more severe case of localized defects satisfying the axial symmetry. The Von Kármán – Donnell shell equations were used. The obtained results show that shell strength at buckling varies very much with the defect amplitude. These variations are not monotonic in general. They indicate however a clear reduction of the shell critical load for some defects revealed as the most dangerous ones. The proposed method does not consider the complete coupled situation that may arise from interactions between several localized defects. It facilitates nevertheless straightforward initializing of closer analyses if such couplings are to be taken into account by means of special numerical approaches, because it enables fast a priori selection of the most hazardous isolated defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]