In this paper, the behavior of cylindrical shells with uniform thickness and functionally graded thickness distributions subjected to axial quasi-static loading is investigated experimentally and subjected to axial impact is investigated experimentally and numerically. Steel cylindrical shells with uniform thickness and functionally graded thickness distributions have same inner diameter, length and weight. Cylindrical shells are impacted by the drop hammer apparatus and experimental axial force-time curves are obtained by using a load cell; in addition, impact simulations are done by Abaqus finite element software. The effect of thickness distributions on the shortening, energy absorption, buckling shape and axial force-time curve of cylindrical shells is investigated. It is found that for axial quasi-static loading, a change in thickness distribution of cylindrical shell is able to convert the buckling shape from mixed buckling (a combination of axisymmetric and diamond modes) to progressive buckling, also for axial impact loading, a change in thickness distribution of cylindrical shell can affect the number of complete folds. The studies also suggest that at same impact energy, functionally graded thickness distribution cylindrical shell compared with uniform thickness distribution cylindrical shell absorbs approximately the same energy with more shortening and transforms less mean load and peak load to under protected specimen, thus, functionally graded thickness distribution cylindrical shell is a better energy absorption specimen. It is found that there is a good agreement between the experimental and numerical results.