Abstract: The hypotheses of the Kármán-Donnell theory of thin shells with large deflections and the Boltzmann laws for isotropic linear, viscoelastic materials, the constitutive equations of shallow shells are first derived. Then the governing equations for the deflection and stress function are formulated by using the procedure similar to establishing the Krmn equations of elastic thin plates. Introducing proper assumptions, an approximate theory for viscoelastic cylindrical shells under axial pressures can be obtained. Finally, the dynamical behavior is studied in detail by using several numerical methods. Dynamical properties, such as, hyperchaos, chaos, strange attractor, limit cycle etc., are discovered.

Key words: Kármán-Donnell theory, viscoelastic cylindrical shell, chaos, hyperchaos, strange attractor, limit cycle