The ratcheting characteristics of cylindrical shell under cyclic axial loading are investigated. The specimens are subjected to stress-controlled cycling with non-zero mean stress, which causes the accumulation of plastic strain or ratcheting behavior in continuous cycles. Also, cylindrical shell shows softening behavior under symmetric axial strain-controlled loading and due to the localized buckling, which occurs in the compressive stress-strain curve of the shell; it has more residual plastic strain in comparison to the tensile stress-strain hysteresis curve. The numerical analysis was carried out by ABAQUS software using hardening models. The nonlinear isotropic/kinematic hardening model accurately simulates the ratcheting behavior of shell. Although hardening models are incapable of simulating the softening behavior of the shell, this model analyzes the softening behavior well. Moreover, the model calculates the residual plastic strain close to the experimental data. Experimental tests were performed using an INSTRON 8802 servo-hydraulic machine. Simulations show good agreement between numerical and experimental results. The results reveal that the rate of plastic strain accumulation increases for the first few cycles and then reduces in the subsequent cycles. This reduction is more rapid for numerical results in comparison to experiments.