Thermal barrier concepts against continuous laser irradiation

Rapid development in the high-power laser technology poses new requirements on the thermal protective materials. Military laser applications have been characterized and the examples have been presented. Existing materials, which may be used as a protection against high-energy laser beam, have been discussed. Several concepts of the new thermal barrier materials have been proposed. The proposals include multilayer structures, porous materials, systems with phase change materials (PCMs), and systems with various thermal contact resistance for different contact pairs. Comparative study based on numerical simulation results has been performed to assess efficiency of each proposal. Three major candidate technologies were considered: the CO2 laser, the HF/DF chemical laser, and the Nd-glass solid-state laser. The CO2 combustion driven gas laser was built in mid-seventies. Its power was 500 kW with the poor beam quality. In the context of thermal protection against laser, high conductive material component in a complex structure might be especially useful, since irradiated surface is usually limited to a small size.