Abstract: Because of the advantages in rapid manufacturing, 3D concrete printing (3DCP) technology has developed rapidly in the past decades. However, there are still many problems to be solved in the printing process. For example, the current related studies have not established a mechanical model that can accurately predict and analyze 3DCP cylinders. Two failure mechanisms of 3DCP cylindrical shell, namely elastic buckling and plastic failure, are analyzed by using Goldenveizer-Novozhilov shell theory and adding printing process parameters, including printing rate, curing characteristics of printing materials, geometric characteristics of 3DCP cylinders and the effect of dead weight. On this basis, the competitive relationship between elastic buckling and plastic collapse of cylindrical shell vertical wall is described. The results of parameter model and finite element simulation were compared with the existing experiments, which verify that the proposed model can better predict the failure length and failure form of 3DCP cylinders, and provide a theoretical guidance for finding the optimal printing parameters set.