As important temporary structures during construction period,steel cylinder retaining structures offer dry environments for the pier construction.A 3D finite element model is built to simulate the constructing process of steel cylinder retaining structure by applying Plaxis 3D finite element software.The elastic model is used to simulate the cylinder,the hardening soil model is adopted as the soil constitutive model,and the interface element is set to simulate the contact between the cylinder and soil body.By calculating the displacement of the soil body and steel cylinder under different conditions,we propose several measures to reduce the displacement and enhance the structural stability.