Abstract: Tills paper is concerned with the thermal and mechanical response of a spheric shell subjected to an internal pressure and the irradiation of a high power laser beam. In the case of relatively lower intensity laser, the irradiating laser is equivalently regarded as a heat flow conducting into the shell. First, the analytical expressions are induced for the temperature field which varies with time, then with a set of typical geometric and material parameters, heat conduction and thermal elasto-plastic deformation of the shell are numerically analyzed by a large finite element program.As a result, clear patterns of heat conduction are obtained. Finally, the laws of the distribution of the shell deformation with location and time, and the dependence of the shell deformation on the laser inensity and irradiation duration are discussed.

Key words: high power laser, spheric shell, heat conduction, elasto-plastic deformation