Composite materials are artificially made materials used in various mechanical applications likernshells and plates. A composite material cylindrical shell is one of the components used in weightrnsensitive areas like aeronautics and marine environments. In these applications, the weight of therncomponents is much more related to cost and the mechanical properties of the structural materialrnare of great importance to hinder the damage that could result as a result of failure. On the otherrnhand, strength and stiffness are very important parameters to prevent the associated seriousrnfailures. So, in order to prevent failure and save weight composite materials were evolved withrncurrently emerging technology. Composite materials are nowadays commonly used in thernaviation industry and marine applications in the form of vessels or shells.rnIn this work, what is targeted at is the carrying out the stress variation analysis of compositernmaterial cylindrical shell. The analysis was performed by studying the properties of composites,rntheir areas of application, anisotropic elasticity relations, fracture mechanics approach forrncomposites, and finally finite element method application is applied to investigate the stressrndistribution at the crack tip in the composite material shell.rnMathematical modeling and finite element simulation of the cracked shell was performed and thernproblem was at the end solved using ANSYS finite element analysis package. Consequently,rnresults were obtained in the post processing stage of ANSYS. The main results obtained were thernmode of stress and strain variation, the profile of the cracked surface, and the localized criticalrnstress and strain regions at the crack front which could be cold shielded damaged zone.rnUltimately, the stress and strain variation, the crack propagation schemes were compared tornisotropic material shell to draw conclusion on the advantages of composites compared tornconventional materials with regard to crack advancement.