Abstract: This paper is concerned with transient response of cylindrical shells with two free ends subject to localized impact. By employing the classical Kirchhoff shell theory, an approximate solution is obtained in which double trigonometric series are used to express the three displacement components. Cylindrical shells subject to a constant impact load of short duration are studied to verify the solution. Reasonably good agreement is reached between the results of the present solution and those of the computer code ABAQUS, showing the effectiveness of the present solution.