Using harmonic differential quadrature method, an approach to analyze sandwich cylindrical shell panels with any sort of boundary conditions under a generally distributed static loading, undergoing elasto-plastic deformation is proposed. The faces of the sandwich shell panel are made of some isotropic materials with linear work hardening behavior while the core is assumed to be an isotropic material experiencing only elastic behavior. The faces are modeled as thin cylindrical shells obeying the Kirchhoff–Love assumptions. For the core material, it is assumed to be thick and the in-plane stresses are negligible. Upon application of an inner and outer general lateral loading, the governing equations are derived using the principle of virtual displacements. Using an iterative approach, named elasto-plastic harmonic differential quadrature method (EP-HDQM), the equations are solved. The obtained results are compared with the results from finite element software Ansys for different sandwich shell panel configurations. Then, the effects of changing different parameters on the stress and displacement components of sandwich cylindrical shell panels in different elasto-plastic conditions are investigated.