Analysis of High-energy Laser Irradiation Effect on a Half-cylindrical Steel Structure under Airflow

In this paper, the damage of a semicircular steel structure specimen simulating a threat when irradiated with a high-energy laser under airflow conditions was analyzed by experiments and numerical analysis. The laser used in this experiment was a CW fiber laser with a wavelength of 1.07 ㎛ and irradiated the specimen within a maximum power of 10 kW. For quantitative analysis of the laser effect, a high-speed camera and a thermal imaging camera were used to acquire the melt-through time and temperature evolution of the specimen, respectively. Along with the experiment, numerical analysis of the experimental conditions was also performed using COMSOL Multiphysics, a commercial code. In addition to the semicircular steel structure, an air domain was added to simulate airflow, and a top-hat shape distribution was applied for beam energy distribution. Two different beam absorption rates were applied to the steel material to compare the temperature distribution of the experimental results, respectively.