Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288

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Defence Technology
journal homepage: www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/defence-technology

Damage to aircraft composite structures caused by directed energy

system: A literature review
Y.X. Zhang*, Zhi Zhu, Richardson Joseph, Isfakul Jamal Shihan
School of Engineering, Western Sydney University, Kingswood, NSW, 2751, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a comprehensive review of the research studies on direct energy system effect on
Received 1 June 2020 aircraft composite structures to develop a good understanding of state-of-the-art research and devel-
Received in revised form opment in this area. The review begins with the application of composite materials in the aircraft
24 July 2020
structures and highlights their particular areas of application and limitations. An overview of directed
Accepted 16 August 2020
energy system is given. Some of the commonly used systems in this category are discussed and the
Available online 26 August 2020
working principles of laser energy systems are described. The experimental and numerical studies re-
ported regarding the aircraft composite structures subject to the effect of directed energy systems,
Keywords:
Aircraft
especially the laser systems are reviewed in detail. In particularly, the general effects of laser systems and
Composite structures the relevant damage mechanisms against the composite structures are reported. The review draws
Damage mechanisms attention to the recent research and findings in this field and is expected to guide engineers/researchers
Direct energy system in future theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies.
Laser system © 2020 China Ordnance Society. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications
Experiment Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
Numerical studies licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction or atomic or subatomic particles are used to degrade, damage, or

Composite materials have been widely used in aircraft in-
dustries due to their excellent strength/stiffness to weight ratio,
leading to significant weight reduction and strength improvement
for the aircraft structures. In addition, composite materials offer
excellent fatigue and corrosion resistance [1]. Composite materials
caught attention in military applications before their commercial
use [2]. They have been widely used in military aircrafts, and the
most desirable aspect of weight reduction would render the aircraft
to carry more weapons and increase its range.
Directed energy systems are relatively new weapon systems
that have been developed. These systems have seen applications in
battle field, and have been used to attack unmanned air vehicles
(UAVs) and helicopters. With further development, these systems
will be used even more widely. In general, all weapons in one way
or another are devices that deposit energy in targets to achieve a
certain type of damage. Directed energy systems are defined as the
systems in which a beam of concentrated electromagnetic energy
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sarah.zhang@westernsydney.edu.au (Y.X. Zhang).
Peer review under responsibility of China Ordnance Society
completely destroy the targets. Directed energy systems are
broadly classified into three main categories: 1) lasers systems,
which use an intensely focused beam of energy to destroy objects
or to dazzle or to disorient peoples; 2) systems which use elec-
tromagnetic waves of other wavelengths such as microwaves; and
3) systems which use particle beams to damage the target. It is
important to provide adequate guidance and reference for engi-
neers/researchers in analysis and design of composite aircrafts
against the attack from direct energy systems.
To better understand the effect of the direct energy systems on
the aircrafts and the relevant damage mechanisms on the com-
posite structures, a large number of research studies have been
conducted. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the
research studies on direct energy system effect on aircraft com-
posite structures to develop a good understanding of state-of-the-
art research and development in this area. This paper focuses on
the experimental and numerical studies of aircraft composite
structures subject to the effect of laser energy systems. The
experimental studies reported include the studies and experi-
mental techniques investigating the thermos-mechanical response,
the ablation behaviour caused by laser energy dissipating in the
plasma layer near the target surface, the interlaminar damage
mechanism and other damage mechanism of various composites

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dt.2020.08.008
2214-9147/© 2020 China Ordnance Society. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-
ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1270 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
(CFRP, GFRP, etc). The effects from both single laser loading and
combined laser and mechanical loading are included. Numerical
studies reviewed include the thermal-mechanical response, abla-
tion behaviour, interlaminar effects and dynamic response of
composite materials under laser irradiations. This review is ex-
pected to guide engineers/researchers for future theoretical, nu-
merical, and experimental studies.
The paper begins with the introduction of the application of
composite materials in the aircraft structures and their particular
application and limitations as presented in Section 2. An overview
of directed energy systems is given in Section 3, with the commonly
used systems discussed and the working principles of laser energy
systems described especially. The experimental studies relating to
the laser system effects on the aircraft composite structures are
reviewed in Section 4. The numerical studies using finite element
method to simulate the direct energy system effect on composite
structures are presented in Section 5. Finally, the review is sum-
marized in Section 6 with recommendations of future research.
2. Composite application in aircraft structures
In general, three groups of composite materials have been
developed for aircraft industries [2], including Fibre-Reinforced
Plastics (FRPs), Fibre-Reinforced Metal Laminates (FRMLs), and
Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs).
2.1. Fibre-Reinforced Plastics (FRPs)
Due to the requirements of high mechanical, chemical and
thermal material properties, the demand of fibre-reinforced com-
posites to replace the metal alloy materials started since the end of
the 1960s. The fibres used are usually carbon, glass, Kevlar or the
combination of these, while thermosetting epoxy is generally used
as the matrix material in fibre-reinforced composites. Fibre-
reinforced composites have been used increasingly in civilian
aircraft applications in recent decades. Extensive applications of
these types of composites are usually seen in Boeing 757, 767, 777,
787 and Airbus A310, A320, A330, A340 and A350. For example, the
fibre-reinforced composites have been used in the fuselage of
Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the outer and centre wing box, fuselage
and the empennage from the Airbus A350 XWB airframe [3].
Carbon Fibres Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs) and Glass Fibres
Reinforced Plastics (GFRPs) are used in modern fighter aircrafts
such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. Their particular
areas of application are in the load-bearing structures such as
vertical stabilizer, tailplane, flaps and wings skin. Future military
cargo Airbus A400 M, C17 (USA), JSF or F35 (USA) and EFA (Europe)
contains up to 40% of composites in the structural mass, covering
around 70% of the surface area of the aircraft [4]. Another class of
fibre used in the FRPs is Kevlar, which is known for its extremely
high strength, low specific weight, outstanding thermal properties
and dimensional stability. Kevlar has been used in the rotor blades
of the American helicopter Boeing AH-64 Apache, however, its use
in aircraft industries is rather limited due to the high cost associ-
ated with it.
Although FRPs offer advantages in terms of weight reductions,
corrosion resistance, improved fatigue life and use of fewer number
of components (lesser no. of fasteners in particular) in the aircrafts,
there are some inherent disadvantages, such as environmental
degradation, material and processing costs, impact damage and
damage tolerance [5e7].
2.2. Fibre-Reinforced Metal Laminates (FRMLs)
Although the application of advanced aluminium alloys and
fibre reinforced composites has potential to reduce the cost of
aircrafts, they have their corresponding advantages and disadvan-
tages. For instance, aluminium alloys offer poor fatigue strength
while fibre-reinforced composites have lower fracture toughness.
In order to overcome the disadvantages of these classes of mate-
rials, the idea to develop hybrid composite structural material was
initiated [8]. As a result, FRMLs are developed using the advantages
of both alloys and fibre reinforced composites, in which the com-
posite laminates are adhesively bonded to thin metal sheets [9].
FRMLs are broadly classified into two main categories, i.e. 1)
FRMLs with aluminium alloys and 2) FRMLs with alternate metal
alloys. Some of the commonly used FRMLs with aluminium alloys
are Aramid Reinforced Aluminium Laminate (ARAL), Glass Rein-
forced Aluminium Laminate (GLARE) and Carbon Reinforced
Aluminium Laminate (CARALL). On the other hand, FRMLs with
alternate metal alloy include titanium based FRMLs and magne-
sium based FRMLs [10]. The most commonly used type of FRML in
the aircraft industry is GLARE, which was employed in the bulk
cargo floors on Boeing 777, United airlines Boeing 737 and 757
aircraft, and all Boeing aircraft at QANTAS. It was also employed in
Midwest Express DC9, explosion hardens LD3 containers, Laser Jet
45 forward bulkhead, AT&T aircraft electronics cabinets, and the
fuselage on the A380 Airbus [11]. In the context of the military
application, in which higher fracture toughness is desirable, GLARE
was found to exhibit outstanding fracture toughness during bullet
hole calibre penetration [12,13]. FRMLs offer low moisture ab-
sorption, however, the main disadvantage associated with FRLMs is
the weak adhesive and cohesive strength between laminas.
Economically, the cost of FRMLs is five to ten times of that of a
traditional aluminium alloy used in the aircraft industry, but they
can reduce the overall structure weight by 20% [1].
2.3. Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs)
MMCs, which are metals or metals alloys that incorporate par-
ticles, whiskers or fibres of different materials, offer unique prop-
erties suitable to specific design needs [14]. In the context of the
aircraft industry, the materials with lower specific weights are used
as matrix materials such as aluminium, magnesium, copper, silver,
tin, lead, titanium, intermetals (NiAl, Ni3Al, Ti3Al, TiAl, MoSi2), and
superalloys. MMCs were used in the 5th generation aircraft
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and the heavy transport plane Boeing
C-17 Globemaster III. MMC composite based on alloy TiAl6V4 and
continuous fibre made of silicon carbide was used in the turbine
aircraft engine. In Ref. [2], the composites were made from the
metal matrix and reinforced with a very fine ceramic or metallic
particle with a diameter of 0.01e0.1 mm to about 15% of the com-
posite volume. MMC composite B-Al (Boron-Aluminium) type of
laminates was used on the leading edges of main and tail rotor
blades of helicopters: Sikorsky S-76D, Sikorsky S-92 or Sikorsky S-
70 [15].
MMCs are ideal materials where high strength and excellent
thermal properties are required. They are extremely reliable for
components which are subjected to higher thermal and mechanical
loadings. However, the use of MMCs is restricted due to the
extremely higher cost associated with them. Some of the
commonly used MMCs configurations are presented in Table 1.
3. Directed energy system (DES)
The three types of directed energy system and their working
principle are introduced in this section with a focus on the laser
system.
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
Table 1
Different fibre-matrix configurations for MMCs [2,14,16].
Matrix Fibres
Continuous
Aluminium Boron, Silicon carbide, Alumina, Graphite
Magnesium Graphite, alumina
Titanium Silicon carbide, Coated boron
Copper Graphite, Silicon carbide, Niobium-titanium (wires), Niobium-tin
(wires)
3.1. Working principles and types of DES
3.1.1. Lasers
The acronym laser stands for “light amplification through
stimulating emission of radiation”, and the laser system is consid-
ered as a device that produces a highly energetic and intense beam
of electromagnetic light. Laser light has the following qualities [16]:

the light released is monochromatic, i.e. with one specific
wavelength, which is dependent on the material of the laser and
the method of stimulation;

the waves of the emitted electromagnetic radiations are in
phase in both space and time, i.e. the light is coherent;

the emitted light is highly concentrated and strong; and

it does not disperse over a long distance due to the coherent
nature.
Laser light is thus a special case of electromagnetic radiation and
is defined by the wavelength, frequency, and speed of light in
vacuum or some other medium [17]. In the context of military
applications of laser system, the type of system is determined based
on the intended target and the operating environment. In partic-
ular, the vulnerability of the target and the range that it must be
engaged are two of the main factors in determining the type of laser
to be selected [18].
3.1.2. Microwaves
Microwaves are another type of electromagnetic radiation with
a comparatively much longer wavelength and much lower fre-
quency than light. Microwaves have been used in various devices
for military applications such as radars, communication links and
missile seekers [17]. However, the use of intense radio frequency
waves (100 MHze3 GHz) is directed towards military targets to
accomplish certain desirable military operations. Such systems can
be used to disable electronic systems by inducing a voltage to the
hardware to destroy or disrupt electronic circuit boards, their
components and software controls. The four levels of effects are
roughly categorised as [18]:

noise, in which the operating signals generated by the source is
not extracted by the receiver;

false information, which is generated via the receiving end;

induced voltage from the source which causes transient upset,
i.e. upset the logical operation of the targeted electronic
equipment; and

induced voltage, which could permanently destroy the target.
In general, depending upon the frequency and waveform, two
basic types of high-power microwave systems are available, i.e. the
narrow band and the wide band system. The selection of different
combinations of the technologies along with the available
1271
Discontinuous Whiskers Particulate
Alumina, Alumina- Silicon Silicon carbide, Boron carbide
silica carbide
Silicon Silicon carbide, Boron carbide
carbide
Titanium carbide
Silicon carbide, Boron carbide, Titanium
carbide
knowledge of the intended target is used to develop a high mi-
crowave source to generate an induced voltage.
3.1.3. Particle beam
In principle, the particle beam systems are close to the con-
ventional kinetic energy systems in the sense that they rely on
kinetic energy. However, instead of the projectile used in the con-
ventional kinetic energy systems, the particle beams are composed
of small particles of high density moving at the speed of light. The
density is usually of the order of 1011 particles per cubic centimetre
[17]. The aim of employing this type of system is to destroy or
disrupt the molecular or the atomic structure of the target. The two
main types of particle beam systems are dependent on the types of
the particles being used either particle possess electrical charge
(electrons or protons) or the electrically neutral particles. Usually,
the electrically charged particles are suitable for application within
the earth’s atmosphere, while the neutral particles are suitable for
space operations. However, the huge cost associated with the po-
wer supply and large fixed installations makes them susceptible to
attack and render them of limited military use.
3.2. Laser energy system
As previously stated, laser is an intense beam of electromagnetic
radiation that is usually defined by the wavelength, frequency,
speed of light and the coefficient of refraction. Some of the most
common applications of lasers are range finders, target designators,
beam riding guidance, laser radar, laser communications and laser
energy systems [18].
3.2.1. Types of laser energy systems
The type of a particular laser system and its properties such as
beam energy, wavelength, mode, peak power, and useful engage-
ment, for a particular application, is dependent on the intended
target and the operating conditions. In terms of energy levels, the
lasers are characterised as low-energy, medium-energy, and high-
energy laser. The associated power for the low, medium, and high
energy laser is in the range of <1 kW, 10 kWe100 kW and >100 kW
respectively, while the energy range is < 1 mJ/cm2, > J/cm2 and
>1 kJ/cm2 respectively. The damage linked with the low energy and
medium laser energy system is usually the destruction of a small
circuit or an electronic device. On the other hand, a high energy
laser system is used for aiming the destruction of a structure. In this
context, the high-energy laser systems are the first choice from a
military point of view. Lower energy laser systems may produce a
targeted flash or continuous beam that temporarily blind human
being [16].
Lasers are also defined by means of the lasing media, i.e. solid
state, liquid or gas. In particular, the high energy laser systems are
powered by a chemical fuel, electric power, or a generated stream of
an electron. The chemical laser setups may achieve high energy
1272 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
level lasers, however their use for the military applications is
limited due to the challenging requirements of volume, weight and
fuel logistics, which require large platforms and stationary in-
stallations. On the other hand, the solid-state lasers are more stable
and easily transported but are very low in efficiency as most of the
energy is lost as heat. Moreover, the free-electron lasers use a
stream of electrons that passes through alternating magnetic fields
to generate high energy laser beams, but their use is restricted due
to the huge size.
3.2.2. Laser-target interaction
The laser-target interaction is primarily dependent on the co-
efficient of refraction-n and an attenuation coefficient-K, which
describes the extent to which the beam flux is reduced as it passes
through a specific material. The beam’s intensity is decreased as it
travels from the source to the target. The beam parameters which
may be adjusted to compensate the decremented effects are en-
ergy, pulse width, beam diameter, and the wavelength. From a
broader perspective, the target effects are either thermal or me-
chanical. The effects are also found to be dependent on the pres-
ence of plasma, which is defined as the state of matter in which the
ionised gaseous molecules become electrically conductive to
deliver long range electrical and magnetic fields, dominating the
matter’s behaviour.
3.2.2.1. Heating and melting. The most basic laser-target interac-
tion effect is heating. When laser light is incident upon the target
surface, some fraction of the energy is absorbed, which is presented
as heat. The heat by itself is not enough to damage the target unless
the target is very soft [17]. Hence, from a military point of view,
heating alone would not be a desirable effect to damage the target
material and structure. However, when the surface of the target is
heated, the energy which deposits on the surface will start to
propagate into the material. The propagation depends on the
thermal diffusivity of the material and the time, and as a result the
surface temperature rises. The target surface may begin to melt if
the temperature of the heated region reaches the melting point of
the material. At the same time, when the intensity on target is
weakened (which reduces the heating as well) other energy loss
mechanisms, such as convection and the re-radiation of energy will
come into play. Similar to the heating, melting alone would not be
damage the target in military applications. To cause significant
damage, it is necessary for the laser beam to make a hole into the
target surface, and the rate at which the hole increases in depth is
called the material’s erosion rate. If the molten material is removed
from the hole, the new material would be exposed to the laser
intensity and hence more damage will occur. However, if the
molten material remains in the hole, more energy would be needed
for further damage.
3.2.2.2. Vaporization. If the molten material remains in the hole, it
must be vaporized before the laser causes more damage. Therefore,
the incident laser intensity on the target surface must be high
enough to accommodate the energy required for the vaporization.
For faster vaporization of the molten materials and hence further
damage, the heat vaporization must be faster than the erosion. In
general, propagation losses will require the laser fire with much
greater intensities, in order to hit the target with the intensity
necessary for damage. The vaporization, in turn, would transfer the
momentum into the depth thus causing the damage by mechanical
effects. For example, the vapour at the surface would act as a small
jet and further exerts reaction forces back to the target which
causes deformation without physically vaporizing the bulk
material.
3.2.2.3. Mechanical effects. Due to the vaporization of the target
material, the momentum transfer into the material’s depth is
termed as the mechanical effect of laser system onto the target. As
mentioned above, the reaction forces exerted by the vapour at the
surface serves to deform the target even without physically
removing bulk material. Thus, the energy required for the me-
chanical damage of the target could be lesser than that for the
thermal damage, though a higher intensity beam is required for the
mechanical effects. From the military point of view, the pressure
and impulse required to cause the mechanical effect on the struc-
ture and its material are dependent on the degree of damage
required.
Overall, it is well understood that the required intensity for the
target erosion (melting or vaporization) damage is comparatively
less than that for the mechanical damage. On the other hand, the
mechanical damage may require higher laser intensity but less
energy to carry on. In several laser-target interaction phenomena,
the plasmas are more likely to occur and influence the interaction
at higher intensities [17].
4. Experimental studies
In this section, the experimental studies of the laser system
effects on aircraft composite structures are reviewed.
4.1. Laser loading only
4.1.1. Thermal-mechanical response
Herr et al. [19] investigated the effect of high energy laser sys-
tem (HEL) on CFRP panels and the thermal-mechanical response of
the CFRP panels. A 1.07 -mm, 2-kW continuous wave ytterbium laser
was used to irradiate the CFRP panels of varying thicknesses (1.7,
2.4, 3.2 mm) with 4, 6 and 8 plies of 6 K 2  2 twill weave carbon
fibre fabric based on Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (DGEBA) epoxy
resin blended polymer matrix. The temperatures at the front and
back surface of the irradiated panels were recorded by mid-infrared
camera, and the spatial and temporal laser beam irradiance varia-
tion was recorded by near-infrared (NIR) camera. A 30-Hz visible
camera was also used to monitor each test which was conducted on
an open optical table with ceiling mounted ventilation hood. All
test panels were shaped to 10.38 cm  10.38 cm. Laser with 5, 10,
36, and 64 W/cm2 output was used to irradiate the 3.2 mm thick-
ness panels, and laser with 10 and 36 W/cm2 was used to irradiate
the 1.7 mm and 2.4 mm thickness panels respectively. The laser
spot diameter was 2.3 cm for the 64 W/cm2 output and 6 cm for all
others. All tests were run for 2 min or until surface ignition
occurred. A FLIR SC6000 MWIR camera was used to record thermal
imageries. The recorded data were processed via a thermal model
with a single set of temperature-dependent thermal, optical and
kinetic parameters based on heat diffusion equation, coupled with
a sequence of visible images, to estimate the CFRP thermal prop-
erties and kinetic parameters during matrix decomposition. Igni-
tion was found to occur at T ¼ 1198 ± 50  C under any
circumstances, which was found to accord with a laser threshold of
21 W/cm2. It was found that high energy system (HEL) posed
detrimental effects to the CFRPs, albeit being incapable of
completely removing its materials.
Thermal shock strength of the laminated carbon-carbon (C/C)
composite subjected to laser heating up was investigated by a few
researchers. The manufacturing process and fibre texture are highly
associated with the mechanical properties of the C/C composite,
and the failure mechanisms of the C/C composite was found to be
very sensitive to the failure between the two layers with low shear
strength, thus entailed the developing of a new method of evalu-
ation for thermal shock shear strength of laminated C/C composite
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
[20e23]. Li et al. [24] evaluated the thermal shock strength of the
laminated C/C composite subjected to laser heating up, and the
acoustic emission (AE) was used to detect fracture which corre-
sponded to the critical power density of the laser to obtain the
thermal shock strength. The fracture was assumed to be initiated by
the induced stress over the shear strength of the material, and the
critical fracture curve was derived as a function of power density
and beam diameter. The laminate of eight-harness stain-weave
cloth with 40% overall volume fraction of carbon fibres with 7.8 MPa
shear strength, 137.3 MPa compressive strength, and 606 MPa
tensile strength, was used in the experiments. CO2 laser with the
maximum power of 1 kW was used to irradiate the rectangular
specimen (50 mm  50 mm  20 mm). Experimental results
concluded that the shear strength criterion was appropriate for the
evaluation of the thermal shock strength of the C/C composites.
Additionally, the maximum shear stress was found to occur at the
periphery of the laser beam and beneath the surface and increase
with the growth of the laser beam diameter and power density.
Uhlmann et al. [25] studied the thermal damage on the unidi-
rectional (UD) carbon/epoxy laminate caused by laser grooving. The
laser beam was supplied by two CO2 lasers of 10000 W and 1500 W,
respectively with 0.17 mm and 0.25 mm focus spot. Grooving ex-
periments were carried out at beam power ranging from 350 to
1500 W in continuous mode and at scanning velocities of
2.5e110 mm/s, and an N2 gas jet flow coaxially to the laser beam
was applied to protect the focusing lens from debris and to provide
an inert environment for beam-material interaction. Thermal
conductivity of the carbon/epoxy was measured at 23  C by the
Laser Flashing Method using a Holometrix Microflash instrument,
conforming to the ASTM E146-92. Experimental results showed
that the heat affected zone was approximately proportional to the
specific laser energy density. Also, it was found that less thermal
damage would be produced under higher laser traverse velocity,
evidenced by the fact that the heat affected zone was reduced as
laser traverse velocity increases.
Leplat et al. [26] investigated the thermal response and damage
evolution of composite laminates subjected to laser heating in the
test chamber of the BLADE (Banc Laser de cAracte’risation et de
Degradation) facility developed at ONERA to analyse the aniso-
tropic and heterogeneous behaviour of decomposing composite
laminates. The square (80 mm  80 mm) test coupon (T700GC/M21
composite laminate) was heated up by continuous laser (1080 nm
wavelength, maximum power of 50W) inside an air-filled pressure-
and temperature-regulated chamber. Sixteen 260 mm thick M21/
35%/268/T700GC unidirectional 268 g/m2 prepreg plies were
stacked into the composite laminate. Especially, the M21 resin
demonstrated high tolerance to damage under high energy im-
pacts. The orientations of the plies in the quasi-isotropic layup were
[0 /45 /90 45 /0 /45 /90 /-45 ]s. The average diameter of fibres
was 7 mm and the volume fraction of fibres was 0.57. The final
thickness was 4.16 mm. At the unheated side of the test coupon, the
transient temperature was measured by quantitative infrared
thermography at 10 Hz acquisition frequency. Additionally, the test
chamber was vacuumed to reach 3 mbar (300 pa) to avoid any
convective heat transfer and volatiles flaming. The quantitative
infrared thermography technique used a FLIR SC7650 infrared
camera equipped with a mid-wave [3e5 mm] high-sensitivity InSb
detector. Four different integration time was used with specific
calibrations for each temperature range to precisely cover the
response of the test coupon with a dependable temperature reso-
lution. The orientation of each test coupon in the experiment was
accurately performed upon aligning the fibre direction of the first
0 - ply along the horizontal plane. The laser-generated a constant
non-uniform heat flux of maximum 220 kW/m2 which exerted 40-
W thermal loading on the material front surface. The heat flux was
1273
assessed prior to the decomposition experiments using a non-
linear inverse heat conduction method. Following each test, a
post-decomposition micrographic analysis was conducted from
longitudinal cross sections of the coupons. The highest temperature
magnitude was observed at the centre of the coupons where the
thermal loading at the front side was the highest. No in-plane
deformation was detected from the IR measurements. However,
temperature-activated chemical reactions occurred which affected
the resin through a pyrolysis charring process. From 150 s exposure
duration, the composite coupons experienced critical temperature
drops which can reach 60 K as observed for the third text coupon.
Such sudden decreases in temperature could only result from
breaks within the continuous medium, which caused local thermal
contact resistances. When the maximum temperature on the cold
surface reached 550 K, delamination was seen onset in all tests.
Nevertheless, identical experimental conditions and thermal
loading resulted in different delamination damage and post-
damage behaviours in terms of onset time, suggesting that
delamination may depend on many parameters with temperature
and exposure time strongly correlated. The deepest delamination
cracks were identified as the consequence of the mechanical
damage induced by high thermal gradients and a non-symmetrical
stacking sequence. Moreover, experimental results confirmed that
the large resin-rich regions at ply interfaces offered preferential
paths for the cracks initiation and propagation of T700GC/M21
laminates.
Herr [27] measured the emissivity-adjusted surface tempera-
tures from laser irradiated CFRP using a mid-wave infrared thermal
camera. In the study, the CFRP targets were irradiated with a
1.07 mm ytterbium doped continuous wave fibre laser at irradiances
ranging from 5 to 525 W/cm2 and 780-3000 W/cm2, respectively.
Surface temperatures of the specimens were measured. The CFRP
testing panels were of 10.38  10.38 cm2 and thicknesses of 1.7, 2.4,
3.1 mm, irradiated by a 2-kW continuous wave IPG Photonics
ytterbium doped fibre laser at 1.07 mm. The test set up is shown in
Fig. 1. The panels were manufactured by layering multiple plies of
6 K 2  2 twill weave carbon fibre fabric in a mould and injecting
epoxy resin under vacuum. The samples contain 4, 6 and 8 plies. A
DGEBA based epoxy resin was used. The 3.1 mm thickness panels
were irradiated at 5, 10, 36, and 64 W/cm2 by the 2.3 cm diameter
laser beam. A beam splitter was used to illuminate a stationary
scatter plate and the spatial and temporal laser beam variation was
recorded by a calibrated near-infrared (NIR) camera. Tests were set
up on an open optical table with ceiling mounted ventilation hood,
and thermal imagery was recorded by a FLIR SC6000 MWIR camera
operated with a bandpass filter from 3.8 to 4.0 mm and neutral
density filter of O.D. 1.0. The spectral emissivity of samples was
observed from 2 to 25 mm with an SOC-100 HDR (Hemispherical
Directional Reflectometer).
Decomposition produced billowing clouds of volatile products
with soot beginning at surface temperature of around 430  C.
Enough volatiles were produced on the backside of the panel which
was ignited by the front side flames at around 600  C. The radius of
visible change ranged from around 2e3.5 cm for 5e35.7 W/cm2
using the 3 cm laser beam radius. No significant mass loss was
observed for total incident energies of less than 7.7 kJ and 5.2 kJ for
non-ignition and ignition cases, respectively, at 6-cm laser spot
diameter. However, no mass loss was observed for total incident
energies of less than 2.8 kJ at 2.3-cm laser spot radius. The
appearance of combustion flames increased the mass loss rate by
45%. Resin matrix removal resulted from HEL heating was found to
be incapable of completely compromising the material, however, it
did inflict several detrimental effects including fouling optics and
electronics, providing a fuel source for combustion, which reduced
the repressive strength of the CFRP.
1274 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
Fig. 1. Experimental setup [27].
Berlin et al. [28] carried out an investigation to ascertain the
effects of heat radiation on several polymer composites, including
composites reinforced with carbon fibres and E-glass. Laminates of
carbon/polyetheretherketone (PEEK), carbon/epoxy and glass/
epoxy namely Ciba Geigy 914C and 914G were used in the experi-
mental study. Ciba Geigy 914C and 914G are thermosetting matrix
composites made of epoxy matrix reinforced with T300 carbon fi-
bres and E-glass fibres, respectively. The specimens were exposed
to radiation on the entrance of an oven set at 800  C with minor
variation between the specimen and the heat source of approxi-
mately 1% at intensities 30 kW∙m2. On the backside, laminates
were subjected to a heat flux of 8e60 kW,m2. The temperature of
the specimens was measured using infra-red (IR) pyrometer. A
microbalance was used to determine the loss in mass after expo-
sure to radiation. In this study, the deterioration of the mechanical
properties of carbon-reinforced composite was found to be attrib-
uted to the delamination. The authors further argued the decay of
composites was preceded by visual defects formed as a result of
exposure to heat radiation. The specimen’s (914C and 914G) dam-
age was found to occur at temperature of approximately 300  C.
Predicting the general laser-matter interaction demands the
accurate thermal analysis (as the fundamental element) in pre-
dicting the overall composite structural reliability when subjected
to rapid high intensity heating. One of the earliest work to study the
transient thermal response of fibre-reinforced composite plates
was conducted by Griffis et al. [29]. In this work, a one-dimensional
heat transfer model was developed to predict heat conduction in
the thickness direction. The area exposed to the laser irradiation
was considered to be significantly smaller than the other charac-
teristics dimensions of the structures. The numerical results of the
thermal analysis (temperature distribution and ablative charac-
teristics) were compared with the experimental data and employed
to evolve thermomechanical stress analysis and failure criteria. The
experiments were conducted on the twenty-ply AS/3501-6
graphite epoxy laminated composite panels of in-plane dimensions
5.6 cm  10 cm. The thickness of the panels was set as 2.54 mm and
the panels were subjected to rapid heating using the 15 kW,
continuous wave, CO2 laser. In order to measure the thermal
response during irradiation, one thermocouple was embedded in
the middle while the second one was placed at the rear surface. In
addition, an optical pyrometer was installed to measure the tem-
perature of the front surface. Testing was conducted at several laser
intensity levels, using a fixed 25 mm beam diameter with variable
power output. Furthermore, to accommodate the aerodynamic
cooling effects, Mach 0.3 airflow was applied parallel to the irra-
diated surface during each test. This research served as the
benchmark for several later reported studies.
Furthermore, Lacroix et al. [30] studied the thermo-mechanical
behaviour of carbon epoxy composite under laser irradiation. The
laser matter interaction was assumed to be linear for the heat
transfer process. The Fourier thermal conduction model was used
to predict the heat conduction, and the mechanical degradation
during laser exposure was obtained through an “Equivalent Ablated
thickness” criteria. This criterion was defined to assess the temporal
progression of the thermal flow inside the material despite the
resistance of the carbon fibres to the laser illumination by means of
a cantilever bending test configuration. The experimental setup
consisted of G939/M18-1 carbon/epoxy laminate samples (based
on 8 wraps of G939 50/50 bi-dimensional prepregs with M18-1
epoxy resin), irradiated with 10 kW IPG fibre laser with a 1.07 mm
wavelength. The illumination area diameter was 2 cm and the
power density were supposed to be homogenous. Experimentally,
the carbon fibres were found to withstand approximately 1 kW/
cm2 of power density with the surface temperature reaching
3250  C.
4.1.2. Ablation behaviour
It was indicated that a highly concentrated laser energy may
cause energy waste due to laser energy dissipating in the plasma
layer near the target surface as high-power density induced optical
breakdown [31e33]. Ablation effect was strongly dependent on the
deposited energy in the target material, emphasizing the impor-
tance of determining the threshold of laser power density to trigger
optical breakdown which caused energy dissipation. Wu et al. [34]
investigated this phenomenon in their study of the laser ablation of
mechanism of CFRP composite. In their study, CFRP specimens
(T800 plain woven carbon fibre cloth reinforced polymer laminate
of 50 mm  50 mm  4.1 mm) were tested under three groups of
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
laser irradiation to obtain ablation behaviours and morphologies of
the CFRP. The power density for continuous wave laser, long pulsed
laser (200 ns pulse duration), and short pulsed laser (10 ns pulse
duration) was 3.54  106 W/m2, 1.50  1012 W/m2, and
3.00  1013 W/m2 respectively. All lasers were designed to irradiate
the square CFRP specimens for 10 s with random polarizations. The
surface morphologies were photographed by optical microscope
and then compared to the CAD drawing. Under continuous laser
irradiation, the CFRP specimen was ablated by several layers fol-
lowed by voids appearing throughout the epoxy layer after 10 s. The
ablation effects on the under-epoxy laminate closely attached to
the top carbon fabric were reduced because laser-induced plasma
absorbed a large part of the incident laser energy as air breakdown
occurred after the surface carbon fibre fabric locally evaporated.
However, long pulsed wave laser drilled a conical hole through the
laminate with largest radius around 1 mm which was smaller than
the laser beam radius, as compared to that the short-pulsed laser
only ablated the thin surface carbon fabric of CFRP.
Zhu et al. [35] studied the ablation behaviour T300/AG80 carbon
fibre reinforced laminate following layup sequence [±45 /0 /90 /
0 ]S of a shape of 200 mm  200 mm  1.5 mm, under Nd:YAG
generated laser beam with 1064 nm wavelength for 5 s irradiation.
The laser power density was 50 W/cm2, and the laser beam radius
was 10 mm, 20 mm, and 30 mm respectively. They used a CRONOS-
PL2-DIO dynamic strain meter to measure the specimen response.
At 0 , 45 , and 90 directions at front and back surfaces of the
specimens, strain foils were attached. Experimental results showed
that the larger the laser beam radius, the greater the thermal shock
exerted upon the specimens. The maximum shocking tensile strain
recorded in 20 mm and 30 mm laser beam radius cases are 5.7 and
8.4 times the maximum shocking tensile strain in the 10 mm case,
respectively. Generally, the strain value at different locations within
the laser spot decreased as it was farther from the centre of the
spot.
Stratoudaki et al. [36] investigated the effect of laser generated
ultrasound on epoxy resins using three different lasers, i.e., TEA CO2
(Coherent, Hull, Laserbrand150), Q-swtiched fundamental Nd:YAG
(Spectron Laser Systems), and XeCl excimer (Lamda Physik). A
Michelson interferometer was used to directly measure the ultra-
sonic waveforms and record the absolute epicentral displacements
on the opposite side of the sample, and the samples were inspected
under optical microscope. The generation beam spot size was kept
between 0.02 and 0.03 cm2 throughout the experiment. The carbon
fibre reinforced composite (CFRC) had a thin superficial layer of
resin with a mean thickness of ~12 mm. Pure epoxy resin samples
were prepared using resins commonly used for the manufacture of
composites, of which the first was a cold-curing epoxy resin, and
the second a warm-curing epoxy resin. The Nd:YAG operated in
TEM00 mode with pulse duration at FWHM was 10 ns and its spot
size was ~0.02 cm2. The FWHM of the TEA CO2 was 50 ns, and the
spot size was ~0.03 cm2. The excimer laser had a ‘top hat’ beam
profile, and its FWHM was 40 ns and its spot size was ~0.02 cm2.
Results showed that in the case of the Nd:YAG laser, most of the
energy was absorbed in the first layer of carbon fibres. In the case of
the excimer laser, the ablation threshold was found to be very low
but the damage was localized at the superficial resin layer. No
exposure of fibres was observed in all three cases.
Pan et al. [37] investigated the ablation mechanism and the ef-
fects of laser parameters in laser ablation of carbon fibre reinforced
silicon composites. The researchers used six different laser power
densities and six levels of pulse numbers. Results revealed that
damage to surface morphology included three areas: the board
region, the transition region, and the centre region. As the laser
power density increased, the ablation at the centre region
increased significantly with the surface cracking with spherical
1275
composite particles observed in the transition region. The surface
morphology of the composite showed that the degradation caused
by laser irradiation at different power densities ranged from
4.77  102 W/cm2 to 12.1  102 W/cm2. An increase in the laser
energy contributed to ablation of the surface coating because of the
high temperature at the centre of the lase spot. In addition, the
composite matrix was decomposed when exposed to strong laser
resulting in the exposure of the non-ablated carbon fibre layers. The
damage to the composite was resulted from the high laser tem-
perature which reached the decomposition temperature of the
composite material, although it did not reach the melting point of
the composites. As a result, the composite was ablated while carbon
fibres were retained but exposed on the surface of the sample. The
ablation centre showed large spherical particles at the ablation
centre which was an oxidation product of the composite material. A
high number of large spherical materials were also found to be
distributed at the ablation edge of the composite coating. As the
laser power on the composite material increased, the boundary
between non-irradiated region and the irradiated region became
clearly visible. Both the carbon fibre and composite matrix surface
were ablated. In addition to complete sublimation of the first layers
of the composite and the matrix, the carbon fibres were also sub-
limated. The sublimation temperatures of the silicon carbide and
carbon composite were 2700  C and 3550  C, respectively, and the
laser temperature at the centre of the composite material was
above 3550  C.
4.1.3. Interlaminar effects
Wu et al. [38] conducted a comprehensive study on the me-
chanical and thermal properties of glass fibre reinforced epoxy
composites. The diglycidyl ether of bisphenol F epoxy resin with the
epoxy equivalent weight of 164e172 g/mol was used. The curing
agent was diethyl toluene diamine (DETD, HY5200, Huntsman
Advanced Materials) with an amine weight equivalence of 44.5 g/
mol. The boron free glass fibre cloth was treated by silane coupling
agent. The fabric was 0.2 ± 0.022 mm thick with count of 18 ± 1
threads/cm in the warp and 14 ± 1 threads/cm in the fill. The
prepared composite panel was cut into specimens for the short
beam shear test with the dimensions of 24 mm  8 mm  4 mm.
60
Co g-ray with dose rate of 300 Gy/min at ambient temperature
was applied upon the specimens. The total doses of 1 MGy, 5 MGy
and 10 MGy were applied respectively. Through the short-beam
shear (SBS) test according to the ASTM D2344, the apparent
interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) was determined. The specimens
were dipped inside a cryostat filled with liquid nitrogen to achieve
cryogenic condition. After the SBS tests, a Hitachi S-4300 SEM was
adopted to observe the fracture surfaces of the specimens. The
UVeVis spectra of the specimens were measured by a Cary 5000
spectrometer. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was per-
formed on an Excalibur 3100 spectrometer. Distinct failure due to
the interlaminar shear was found in all cases. No clear effect of the
gamma ray irradiation on the interlaminar shear strength was
found when the total doses was less than 5 MGy. However, the ILSS
sharply decreased after exposed to the total 10 MGy dose. Two
radiation-induced processes, i.e., the molecular chain scission and
crosslinking, were identified to associate with ILSS reduction
mechanisms. Specifically, the chain scission generally reduced the
cryogenic strength and stiffness of the matrix which resulted in the
degradation of the ILSS. After 10 MGy irradiation, the ILSS was
found being decreased by around 58%. Thermogravimetric analysis
showed that the initial degradation temperature (IDT) of the
specimens decreased drastically after the irradiation with a
decrease of 18% and 25% in IDT respectively from 5 MGy to 10 MGy
compared to that of the non-irradiated specimen. Overall, the
composite laminate could resist the dose of 5.0 MGy.
1276 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
Following the work done by Wu et al. [34], Liu et al. [39,40]
further investigated the CFRP composite laminate interacting with
infrared wave laser, and interlaminar damage of CFRP laminate
under continuous laser irradiation. The 2 mm thick CFRP lamina
synthesized from CCF-700 carbon fibre and BA9916-II resin matrix
was autoclave treated and then being irradiated by infrared laser of
1064 nm wavelength and 200 ns pulse duration repeating at 10 Hz.
The specimen was compacted by 16 laminates of a thickness of
0.125 mm by [45 ,0 ,-45 ,90 ]2s sequence, and then shaped into
50 mm  50 mm  50 mm cube with 145±g/m3. The specimen was
irradiated by the infrared laser of 1064 nm wavelength by pulse
duration of 200 ns repeating at 10 Hz. The laser spot radius was
1.1 mm and the output power were around 1.1 J. Optical microscope
was used to observe cut cross sections of the CFRP specimens. It
was observed that the longer irradiation would cause wider hole at
the back surface of the specimens after it was penetrated and
around 10 s were required to drill the specimen through. In addi-
tion, Finite Element model was utilized to investigate the temper-
ature and phase change of the specimens. A wider hole than that
from the experiment as well as a coarse aperture wall were pre-
dicted from the numerical simulations.
When being exposed to high temperature, CFRP laminates
became very susceptible to deterioration in mechanical properties,
and composite gradients are prone to flaming [41,42], and inter-
laminar thermal damages induced by ablation could lead to
disastrous consequence on CFRP laminate. In theory, it was the
propagation of the interlaminar cracks that governs the interlam-
inar separation of the CFRP and was greatly dependent on the fibre
lay angles. However, the multi-interlaminar shear failure mode was
basically attributing to the weak fibre-matrix interface in the CFRP.
In the work done by Liu et al. [40], the interlaminar damage mor-
phologies of the CFRP laminate under continuous laser irradiation
was recorded. Acquired interlaminar damage pattern and its spatial
distribution were further analysed. An optical microscope and a
scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used in the study. The
same specimen in the previous study [39] was used again but was
irradiated vertically by continuous wave laser in a cabinet filled of
Nitrogen. The continuous wave laser of 1070 nm wavelength was
used to irradiate the specimens for 3 s by output of 500 W, 800 W
and 1000 W respectively. The optical microscope and SEM were
used to observe the interface damages at cross section of the
specimens. Morphologies at cross section were recorded, illus-
trating pyrolysis occurring in up to eight laminate from the surface
layer where fibre fracturing under direct irradiation. Similar to the
phenomenon observed in carbon/carbon composite exposed to
elevated temperature [43], the interlaminar cracks were found to
increase in width and length as laser power output rise, and at
around the backward surface large interlaminar cracks were seen.
4.1.4. Damage analysis
Gay et al. [44] studied the local tensile stress caused by laser-
induced shock within CFRP composite laminates involved in aero-
nautic and defence industry. They selected the carbon fibres G40-
800-24 K reinforced epoxy Cytec® 5276-1 with 4 and 8 ply lami-
nates by layup sequence [0 /90 ]S and [0 /-45 /90 /45 ]S respec-
tively as test specimen which were shaped to 15 mm  15 mm with
a thickness of 600 mm and 1200 mm respectively. The average
diameter of the carbon fibres is 5 mm and their volume fraction is
70%. A linear-elastic law [45,46] was used to describe the dynamic
behaviour of the composites. In their adhesion test, the load was
generated by a Nd:YAG laser which delivered a calibrated pulse
with a duration of 9.3 ns at Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM)
and an energy of 1.5 J with 532 nm wavelength. The high intensity
pulse drove a compression wave within the specimen to test and
was eventually released to relax the material to its initial state. The
pulse propagating through the sample thickness to the opposite
surface where it bounced back in tension could induce damage.
Firstly, the experiments were performed on the 4-ply lamina and a
delamination threshold for an incident intensity of [0.9e1.03] GW/
cm2 was detected. Secondly, the 8-ply lamina was tested under
irradiation of 450 ns pulse duration laser, and the 1.49 GW/cm2
laser intensity was found to be strong enough to induce delami-
nation. The microtomography X-Tek HMXST 225 was used to
examine recovered samples. The incident intensity to induce
delamination in the 8-ply case was found higher than that in the 4-
ply case, and it was observed that laser-induced stress waves could
produce on-axis tension which caused delamination of the speci-
mens. The tensile strength of both the 4 and 8 ply lamina was found
to be around 292 MPa, which was in the same range as the strength
evaluated by Yu and Gupta [47], and Riedel et al. [48].
Laser shock wave techniques have also been used to experi-
mentally examine the damage of directed energy on composites
which are widely used in the aerospace industry. Ecault et al.
[49e51] first examined how laser shock wave impacted on carbon
fibre reinforced polymer (material T800/M21). The T800/M21 is a
common composite material in the aeronautical industry, made
from mon-conventional matrix that is mixed from thermoplastic
nodules and thermoset epoxy resin whose mechanical character-
istics are created to improve shock resistance. Besides their
adequate mechanical properties, T800/M21 composite materials
are also used in the aeronautics industry because of their light
weight. Characterization of T800/M21 materials for various defects
has been achieved in the past using Interferometric Confocal Mi-
croscopy, X-ray Radiography, and Optical Microscopy. Ecault et al.
used Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) samples for the
experiment to assess how laser shock waves impacted on com-
posite materials. The researchers first conditioned the samples by
shocking them with various laser energy levels to generate diverse
levels of internal damage. The samples were then recovered from
the set-up for analysis using several diagnostic setups. The first
shocks were performed on thin T800/M21 samples measuring
1.5 mm that were extracted by cutting out from thicker materials.
Optical micrography was used to analyse the samples which were
exposed to laser shock waves. The analysis was used to assess the
correlation between laser intensity and damage characteristics on
the composite material. The second shock waves were done on
thicker materials of 6 mm as shown. Resulting damage was ana-
lysed using Interferometric Confocal Microscopy (ICM) and X-ray
radiography on the back face of the samples. The obtained data was
used to assess the damage threshold done on the T800/M21 CFRP
because of laser shock dynamic loading. Results from the 1.5 mm
T800/M21 composite samples revealed that the damage induced by
laser shock was cone shaped through the sample thickness. The
cone basis was situated at the back of the face.
For the different laser shocks, the sample exhibited a similar
kind of damage despite the laser strength used. Ecault et al. [49e51]
also performed laser shocks on 66 mm thick T800/M21 CFRP
samples. Like the thin samples, four different laser pulse intensities
were used. Results showed that since the samples were thick, the
laser did not spall them. The laser shock wave amplitude was
decayed through the material’s thickness as there was a longer
distance to close before emerging from the other side of the face.
The resulting damage was evident in the form of small blisters on
the material back face based on the ICM and X-ray radiography
measurements. In summation, it was observed that the damage
resulting from the laser shock wave propagation on composite
materials was resulted from laser intensity. A potential damage
scenario for the T800/M21 composite due to high laser irradiation
was shown revealing the damage tolerance of aircraft composite
materials when exposed to high energy laser wave shocks.
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
Ecault et al. [49e51] then examined composite material damage
resulting from laser-induced shock waves on 10 mm long and 5 mm
thick transparent epoxy composites using optical shadowgraphy.
The shock waves from high laser intensity were focused on com-
posite material for 3 ns pulse duration (1.2e3.4 TW/cm) generating
a pressure of between 44 GPa and 98.9 GPa. Results revealed that
the shock wave and release wave generated by the laser reverber-
ation at the back face was followed by a dark zone. The results
indicated that the shock wave and release wave resulting in dark
zone at the back face corresponded with the creation of tensile
zone due to crossing on the loading axis of the release waves that
came from the edge of the impact region. The shock wave setting up
at t ¼ 0.5 ms and propagation t ¼ 1 ms and 1.5 ms revealed two main
shapes. At t ¼ 1 ms there were thin curved black lines which were
the shock wave. At this stage, the composite was compressed
because of the pressure state that contributed to the observed
darkness. Considering that the shock was short, the pressure was
released once the loading stopped. The shock wave was followed by
a grey area which was a colour that was evident in unloaded areas.
A sizeable black blur behind the first two waves was identified
which traduced a tensile loading due to the geometry of the laser
impact. The phenomenon was called the edge effect which relied
on the principle of spherically propagating release waves inside the
composite from the edge of the impacted area. Upon reaching the
free surface, the shock waves were reflected releasing a curved grey
line, which propagated backwards from right to left and crossed the
black blur which was the incident tensile stressed region. The back
face was progressively loaded with tensile stress in line with the
spallation phenomena and shock wave propagation. Ecault et al.
[49e51] also investigated the impact of laser shocks on eco-
composites to assess how the materials degraded under laser
impact loading. The researchers compared the impact of laser shock
induced damage based on back observations of composite samples
for various types of eco-composites. Inside delamination, residual
blister and spallation resulting from laser impact on fibre length
were also tested using the Terahertz technique. The laser was
focused on the surface of the specimen. Aluminium coating caused
the matter/laser interaction to be generated on the sample surface,
which caused the high-pressure plasma created from the process to
expand rapidly. Reactions inside the material contributed to a
generation of shock waves. The directed shock propagated through
the composite material depending on the geometry and charac-
teristics of the samples. Due to impedance mismatch, the incident
shock wave was reflected into the release wave upon reaching the
sample blackface creating a release backward wave propagation.
The release wave crossed the incident release wave which came
from initiation at the end of the loading (returns to the initial state).
The crossing of two release waves contributed to high tensile stress
which could damage the composite material if the threshold was
exceeded. In composites with short fibres such as TWA and WA,
damage resulted from ejection and separation of fragments from
the surface, which was referred to as the spallation phenomenon.
For the WA and TWA composites, the spallation phenomenon was
noted to have variations in its damaging ability where the area of
damage for the TWA was 6.6 mm compared to 4.7 mm damage
recorded in WA composite under the same laser shock. These ob-
servations demonstrated that thermal treatment of spruce fibres
caused high damage due to brittleness of the composite material
when exposed to high energy laser. When considering the com-
posites with flat mat reinforcement, no spallation was recorded. In
this case, the inside damage resulting from laser shock generated
residual relief which caused small blisters on the back-face surface
of the FBB and FPLA composites. The measurement of diameters of
blisters resulting from laser directed shocks on the composites
showed that there were also differences in behaviours. The FPP
1277
sample had a blister diameter of 8.5 mm compared to the blister
diameter of 10 mm on the FPLA sample. Thus, laser shock created
more damage to FPLA samples than to the FPP samples. Finally, the
HE composites showed partial blister spallation with a diameter of
9.4 mm, while that of the GE composite had a whitened zone of
7.7 mm. It was found that composites which were used in the
aerospace industry exhibited different behaviours when being
exposed to laser impact loading and directed energy sources,
largely depending on distribution, length, type of fibres, and the
matrix used for composite materials. When the same laser impact
intensity was used, the composite materials recorded three types of
damage at the back-face samples. These damages included inside
delamination, residual blister, and spallation. Short fibres were
damaged from the spallation phenomenon which indicated their
low strength. Non-woven fibres indicated residual blisters which
was a composite damage step preceded spallation. In contrast,
woven fibres showed combined spallation and blister damage, but
woven glass composites showed whitening on back face surface.
Garcia et al. [52] investigated the possibility of lasers defeating
targets without penetration but with heat re-radiating to internal
components by using a thin carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP)
and a steel disc to represent target skin and internal component,
respectively. A FLIR® A325sc infrared camera was used to measure
steel disc temperature. Thin carbon fibre composite laminate con-
sisting of 2-, 4-, and 6-ply sheets and having 50% carbon fibre-resin
mass ratio were shaped into 5.08 cm  25.4 cm strip specimens.
The composites were reinforced with a 3K plain-weave, 5.7 oz/yd2
carbon fibre cloth. After being vacuum bagged for 1 h at 1 atm
pressure, the composites were further heated to 121  C and cured
using a 2-ton press for 1.5 h. A YLR-100-AC fibre laser served to
output laser beam with a M2 value of 1.07, maximum 100 W, and 5-
mm diameter. The actual range of on-target irradiances was be-
tween 101.9 W/cm2 and 509.3 W/cm2 due to lab limitations. A 1 cm
diameter metal disc made from 1008 carbon steel with a nominal
thickness of 0.15 mm was used to simulate the internal component.
Its temperature was measured by an attached Type K thermo-
couple. In the experimental setup, an IR camera was offset 53 from
the plane perpendicular to the sample plate to avoid any damage as
laser could potentially penetrate the composite. The setup of the
experiment is shown in Fig. 2. High energy laser was placed
perpendicular to the sample plate at other side. The specimens
were subjected to five different irradiances of between 152.8 W/
Fig. 2. Experimental setup from top view [52].
1278 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
cm2 and 356.5 W/cm2. The resulting temperature was measured at
the back of the composite. Results confirmed that without com-
plete penetration, the intense local heating caused by laser radia-
tion on a CFRP laminate can damage the internal components.
Radiation from the heated internal component in turn contributed
to the development of flames at the back surface of the CFRP. The
released heat elevated the temperature of the 6-ply CFRP back
surface by 237 K during the 305.6 W/cm2 test and by 240 K during
the 356.6 W/cm2 test. In a typical unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
fuselage, the heat gave rise to internal flames that could damage
flight control systems and ignite the fuel mechanism.
In the study conducted by Voisey et al. [53], SEM and Raman
spectroscopy were used to investigate the effects of the fibre type
on the extent of laser-induced fibre swelling in carbon fibre com-
posites being laser-drilled by pulsed Nd:YAG laser (l ¼ 1.06 mm).
T300, high modulus (HM) and P100 fibres were heat treated for
12 h at 2000  C prior to the experiment. An average output power
of 135 W, M2 value of ~25 with single pulsed of energy 1.0 J and
duration 1.0 ms Nd:YAG laser was adopted. An average power
density of around 30 kW/mm2 was yielded by the 100 mm focused
spot diameters. Prior heat treatment was found to have substan-
tially reduced the swelling exhibited by the T300 fibres but had
little effect on other two fibres. The obtained spectra showed laser
drilling had rendered the T300 fibres more graphitic and less
disordered. It was proposed that the rapid heating and high ther-
mal gradients generated by laser drilling tended to volatilise non-
carbon impurities and create high gas pressures. These high pres-
sures could act as a driving force for the new structure to be more
open which was apparently retained after the impurities were
driven off. This mechanism explained why fibres containing larger
quantities of residual (volatile) impurities were more prone to
laser-induced swelling.
Instead of the total failure/destruction of the targeted structure,
the recent military interest has been shifted to tactical threats, such
as cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which can
be countered with comparatively lower laser irradiance. The idea is
to bring the incident laser wavelength to the near Infrared region,
which can penetrate the matrix resin of most of the composite
materials. One such study was conducted by Wu et al. [54] in which
it was argued that the weakly absorbed, more deeply penetrating
near-IR radiation softened the resin matrix resulting in structural
failure under load at lower laser intensity than what was required
for mid-IR lasers. The study used two materials for illustration, i.e.
translucent fibreglass composite and opaque carbon composite.
Since the study was related to the deep penetration of the laser, the
first step in the experimental program was to determine the ab-
sorption properties in material samples, so that the comparison of
the results with the theoretical values could be made. Following
this, the measure of the compressive load strength under near-IR
laser irradiation was made. The composite plate samples were
held vertically in a hydraulic load machine designed to apply a
constant compressive force. A uniform illumination on the samples
was achieved by passing light from a 1.5 kW diode laser array and
the wavelength of 0.8 mm through a lens duct and imaging lenses.
Digital and IR cameras were used for recording purposes. The ex-
hausts were provided for the fumes to be exhausted. The research
discovered that the volume heating by direct in-depth absorption
of laser energy in case of translucent fibreglass composite material
and rapid conduction of surface-deposited energy as in the case of
opaque carbon composite may cause the failure at one to three
orders of magnitude lower than the intensity required to produce a
lethal effect by target penetration.
The intense heating produced by the laser system can adversely
affect the mechanical properties of the composite structures such
as the tensile/shear strength and elastic modulus. Meanwhile,
severe thermal irradiation may also induce significant geometrical
changes in the structure’s surface ablation or localized burn
through. It was well understood that if the surface temperature
reached the ablation temperature of the composite, the material
would undergo a sublimation reaction. The burn-out material
reduced the structural stiffness of the remaining laminate and
increased the mechanical stresses, thus degrading the structure’s
load-carrying capability. Moreover, due to the presence of highly
non-uniform temperatures over the thickness of the composite
laminate, thermal in-plane forces and bending moments might
arise. Obviously, these thermal loads play an important role in the
change of constitutive relations of a laminate, initially subjected to
mechanical loads. Hence, methods for predicting composite dam-
age under coupled laser irradiation and mechanical loading have
been developed by the researchers [55,56,61].
Candan et al. [57] investigated laser threats on fibre-based bal-
listic-resistant composites, and the Spectra Shield SR-3136 com-
posite material was used in the investigation. Spectra Shield SR-
3136 was a thermoplastic composite made of ultra-high molecu-
lar weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE) fibres reinforced with low-
density (LD-PE) fibres. The composite was exposed to a contin-
uous wave laser beam at 915 nm of a fibre-coupled diode laser
module. The specimen exposed to the laser beam had a puncture
with significant swelling around the entry hole subjected to tem-
perature of 450  C or more. A full penetration was observed at a
laser energy of 20 kJ and greater. Furthermore, as a result of the
slight tapering induced by asymmetric behaviour close to the
entrance, the entry hole had a diameter of 16 mm which was larger
than the diameter of the exit hole of 2.4 mm.
4.2. Combined loading
Allheily et al. [58] investigated the thermo-mechanical behav-
iour of aeronautic materials (CFRP) subjected to powerful electro-
magnetic fluxes to assess the likely impact of directed energy
systems on aircraft composite structures. The method proposed
was meant to find a way to neutralise unmanned aerial vehicles
that posed threat to defence installations. In the preliminary study
the authors carried out three tests namely thermal surface char-
acterization, thermal in-depth characterization, and thermo-
mechanical characterization on G939/M18-1 specimens (Hexcel
Composites) made of plain-woven carbon fabrics. In all the tests the
specimens were initially exposed to a homogenous irradiation with
a 10 kW fibre laser from IPG. Approximately 3% of the laser energy
was produced with a beam splitter. Concurrently, the front side of
the specimen was exposed to gas flow which was applied parallel to
the irradiated surface before, during and after the irradiation. The
purpose of gas flow was to assess the carbon fibres combustion
impact on temperature readings by comparing experiments with
air or nitrogen. After each experiment the specimens were weighed
to determine mass loss based on laser intensity and the irradiation
time.
Results show that with growing laser power the temperature of
the irradiated zone increased and reached a maximum value of
3300  C for power densities that were greater than 1000 W/cm2.
The maximum power recorded aligned with the values recorded by
other researchers [49e51], and it referred to the sublimation
temperature of the carbon composite fibres. When observing post
irradiation samples, the same property was also observed while
irradiations with power density of less than 1000 W/cm2 only
impact on epoxy matrix because the sublimation temperature was
lower than that of the carbon material where drilling became
visible when the composite sample were irradiated using laser
power density that was greater than the threshold value. The
evolution of the temperature gradient was evident inside the
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
composites where the results revealed that CFRP was a good
thermal insulator since it could take some seconds before the back-
face side temperature became significant. The observed thermal
resistance was attributed to strong carbon fibres which could
absorb almost all laser energy in a single fabric layer and sustaining
high temperatures without resulting in ablation. Once the carbon
ablation conditions were attained, the amount of laser energy
needed to damage the composite material was high because of the
substantial carbon ablative enthalpy. All these observations
explained for the 10 s continuous laser irradiation resulting in very
high temperatures at the composites’ front face (above 2000  C for
200 W/cm2), while the rear side that was 4 mm in thickness
reached only 250  C. In contrast, the pyrolyzes process on the
matrix started after irradiation. The side post-irradiation and
infrared observation revealed an exothermic pyrolysis at between
300  C and 350  C that preceded the delamination front. The
chemical degradation temperature ranged in line with the thermo-
gravimetric analysis resulting in pure resin component with an
inert ambient medium. The composite recorded thickness reduc-
tion during irradiation and post-irradiation since the bending
displacement increased even when the irradiation stopped. The
study indicated a good thermal insulation of the composite mate-
rial, which was largely because of the potential of carbon fibres to
absorb and support heat fluxes. Furthermore, the delamination of
the composite reduced energy deposition on the specimen.
Zhao et al. [59] conducted an experimental study on the failure
behaviour of CFRP composites subjected to tensile loadings under
thermal environments and laser irradiation. T700/BA9916 epoxy
prepreg was cured at 180  C, and the ply pattern was [45 /0 /-45 /
90 ]2s. The epoxy and fibres accounted for 0.467 and 0.533
respectively in the laminated composites which had a thickness of
2.40 mm and width of 20 mm. Electric resistance wire was wound
into a heating band, being set around the specimen to conduct the
tensile tests at thermal environments. Thermal couples of NiCr-NiSi
type were installed to monitor the specimen temperature and
heating rate, and tensile strain was acquired by a DIC system. The
CFRP specimens were irradiated by continuous wave laser by po-
wer densities ranging from 1.5 MW/m2 to 12.7 MW/m2 in a nitro-
gen protection environment for the sake of avoiding possible
combustion. The laser source was a YLS 1070 nm fibre laser of 2 kW
provided by IPG Ltd. The defective specimen was further applied
with tensile loading at 2 mm/min rate in MTS until failure. Results
showed that complex thermal damages could happen once CFRP
composites were exposed to thermal loadings which could lead to
decrease of the Young’s modulus and failure strength. Residual
strength was found to decline as target temperature or laser power
density increased. Besides, residual strength was found falling
drastically before laser power density reached 6.3 MW/m2 after
which it decreased at a slower rate. However, a temperature
plateau zone was identified before 200  C, which was the thermal
pyrolysis activation temperature for epoxy resin. Sublimation (the
phase transition of substance directly from solid to gas) of carbon
fibres occurred once temperature reached 3000  C. The turning
point at which delamination cracks occurred was found to be at a
power density of 2.5 MW/m2.
The failure behaviour of the T700/603 carbon fibre/epoxy
composite laminates under pre-load compression or tension and
laser irradiation was tested to study the effect of main parameters
including pre-stress ratio, laser power density as well as the
thicknesses of the specimens on failure time [60] of
140 mm  10 mm specimens with various thickness consisting of
0.15 mm thick ply. A Zwick/Roell-Z100 universal testing machine
was employed to apply pre-load of 35% or 50% of the average ul-
timate compressive collapse stress and 50%, 65% or 80% of the
average ultimate tensile fracture stress to the composite laminate
1279
specimens. The laser spot was 15 mm in diameter perpendicularly
focusing on the centre of the specimen with 0.202, 0.492, 0.953 and
1.935 kW/cm2 power intensity. Specimens with the same thickness
were tested under the same pre-load and same irradiation laser
intensity. Laser irradiation was kept on until material completely
failed. CO2 CW laser system was used to generate laser with 10.6 mm
wavelength. The failure time was defined as the time from the start
of irradiation to the complete fracture of the specimens. Results
showed that the laser power intensity at 0.202 kW/cm2, pre-stress
ratio at 0.5 and thickness of specimen at 1.5 mm would cause
complete fracture after 9.90 s irradiation. On the contrary, the
failure time in the compression test is much shorter than that in the
tension test. Additionally, the failure mechanism in tension test
mainly included fibre drag break, while delamination and buckling
were what caused failures in compression test. The failure time of
the specimens with the same thickness will be shortened expo-
nentially as laser power intensity increased. The relationship be-
tween the specimen failure time and the main parameters under
tension load combined with laser irradiation and under compres-
sive load combined with laser irradiation are expressed in Eq. (1)
and Eq. (2) respectively.
tT ¼ 6:4411  36:7988sh  5:1239sh2 þ 35:1316se3:1464Is
 28:4074he3:1464Is þ 5:2739h2 e3:1464Is
(1)
tC ¼ 0:7076  11:1656I  0:3597 þ 10:9637hI  0:3597
 2:1372h2I  0:3597 þ 22:7927r sI  0:3597
 22:5215r shI  0:3597 þ 4:7401r sh2I  0:3597 (2)
where tT, tc are the specimen failure time under tensile load and
compressive load, respectively, h is the thickness of composite
laminated specimen, rs is the pre-stress ratio, I is the laser power
density.
Kibler et al. [61] conducted a series of experimental and
analytical studies on the response of graphite-epoxy composites to
continuous-wave CO2 laser radiation. Tensile coupons of one
graphite-epoxy system (Narmco 5208/T300) and one aluminium
alloy (2024 (T81)) were exposed to laser irradiation. Three com-
posite laminates, namely (0 /±45 )C, (/±45 /90 )2S, and (90 //
±45 )2S with 12-ply of nominal thickness of 0.073 mm were used.
In the low power laser experiments, the laser irradiations were
performed with a model 41 Coheren Radiation Laboratory laser
with incident beam power of 200 W. A Mach 0.2 airflow was
maintained parallel to the specimen surface. An iron-constantan
thermocouple at various positions on the back surface of the
specimen was used to monitor the temperature. In the high-power
laser experiments, a GTE Sylvania model 971 with incident beam
power of 750 W was used for the first series of exposures, and a
Mach 0.1 airflow was maintained across the width of the specimen
surface. The 10 Kilowatt ‘flat-top’ laser was used for the second
series of exposures. It was determined that the aluminium was
more susceptible than composites to damage at a high laser in-
tensity, especially, both penetration time and strength retention
were less for aluminium than for the composites. A strength
retention in terms of fracture mechanics-based predictions was
proposed for the partially penetrated and laser-damaged compos-
ites. Moreover, specimens loaded in tension and irradiated to fail-
ure were found to fracture at a slightly lower preload than the
strength retention of specimens irradiated but unloaded.
Laser-induced damage on mechanically loaded laminates in
unmanned aircraft was explored with a view to predict the
thermal-mechanical response of the heated panel irradiated by
1280 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288

Table 2a
A summary of experimental studies. Experimental studies on thermo-mechanical responses.

Research Thermo-
focus mechanical
response

Materials CFRP CFRP Composite laminated Unidirectional T700GC/M21 Laminate carbon/ Fibre- G939/ CFRP composite
Composite laminate laminate carbon- (UD) carbon/ Composite laminate polyetheretherketone reinforced M18-1 laminate
carbon (C/ epoxy (PEEK) composite Carbon/
C) laminate plates epoxy
composite laminate
Reference [19] [27] [20e24] [25] [26] [28] [29] [30] [58]

Loadings Laser ytterbium fibre CO2 laser CO2 laser Laser-generated Heat flux of 8 Continuous 10 kW Electromagnetic
(5,10,56,64 W cm2) laser 5 1 kW (10 kW, constant non- e60 kW cm2 wave CO2 IPG fibre fluxes, homogenous
e525 W cm2 1.5 kW) uniform heat flux of laser of laser irradiation with
and 780 maximum 15 kW 10 kW fibre laser.
e3000 W cm2 220 kW cm2
Reference [19] [27] [24] [25] [26] [28] [29] [30] [58]

Table 2b
A summary of experimental studies. Experimental studies on ablation behaviour.

Research Ablation behaviour

focus

Material CFRP T300/AG80 carbon Carbon fibre Carbon fibre reinforced silicon
fibre reinforced reinforced composite composites
laminate (CFRC)
Reference [34] [35] [25] [37]

Loading Continuous wave laser, long pulse laser (200ns pulse duration), short pulsed laser Nd:YAG laser beam TEA CO2 Nd:YAG Laser irradiation
(10ns pulse duration). Laser (3.54  106, 1.1  1012, 1.5  1012 W cm2) 50 W cm2 laser (4.77  102 W cm2,
12.1  102 W cm2)
Reference [34] [35] [25] [37]

laser [62]. The laser damage was assessed on specimens under load.
This was achieved by applying bending stress of 100 MPa on the
specimens, which was produced by a loading device consisting of a
load cell and target fixture that was used to fix the specimen. An
evaluation was then undertaken to ascertain the thermal-
mechanical parameters of laser irradiated specimens. The investi-
gation was carried out on glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) and
Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) specimens. The specimens
were cut into thin rectangular sheets of 120 mm  45 mm. The test
specimen was subjected to a radiation density of 1 kW/cm2. A
carbon dioxide laser with an operating wavelength of 10.6 mm was
used. The damage of the specimen was studied by LYNX Dynoscope.
At an irradiation of 1 kW/cm2, the CFRP samples had a reduction of
72% in bending strength recorded at a bending stress of 20 MPa.
Besides, the tensile strength was reduced by 36% for the loaded
samples subjected to the bending stress of 100 MPa whilst for GFRP
specimens a 31% reduction was obtained. In comparison, the tensile
strength reduction for unloaded samples were 22% and 14%
respectively. The tensile strength of specimens was measured
before and after laser irradiation by universal testing machine
(UTM). Significant damage occurred under mechanically loaded
conditions resulting in resin sublimation. The extent of the damage
was analysed by assessing the ablated mass of the specimen. It was
noted that the ablated mass was more for all the specimens when
the test samples were irradiated by laser under loaded conditions.
High intense radiation induced significant mass loss as a result of
resin sublimation.
The experimental studies reviewed are summarized in Table 2,
with the experimental studies on thermo-mechanical responses
listed in Table 2a, experimental studies on ablation behaviour in
Table 2b, experimental studies on interlaminar effects in Table 2c,
and experimental studies on damage analysis in Table 2d. A sum-
mary of damage mode identified in the experimental studied is
listed in Table 3 with those under single loading only listed in

Table 2c
A summary of experimental studies. Experimental studies on interlaminar effects.

Research Interlaminar effects

focus

Material Glass fibre reinforced epoxy composites CFRP Composite laminate CFRP Composite laminate
Reference [38] [39e42] [40]

Loading 60
Co g-ray with dose rate of 300 Gy/min at Infrared laser of 1064 nm wavelength and 200 ns Continuous wave laser of 1070 nm wavelength at
ambient temperature pulse duration, 10 Hz 500 W, 800 W, 1000 W.
Reference [38] [39,40] [40]
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288 1281

Table 2d
A summary of experimental studies. Experimental studies on damage analysis.

Research Damage
focus analysis

Material CFRP CFRP CFRP Carbon fibre Translucent Fibre-based CFRP composite T700/603 carbon Graphite- Glass fibre
composite composite composite composites fibreglass ballistic- laminate fibre/epoxy epoxy reinforced
laminate laminate laminate composite/ resistant composite composite polymer
(T800/M21) opaque composites laminate (Narmco
carbon 5208/T300)
composite
Reference [44,47,48] [49e51] [52] [53] [54] [57] [59] [60] [61] [62]

Loading Nd:YAG Laser Fibre laser with Nd:YAG fibre laser 1.5 kW Continuous Continuous wave Pre-load Continuous- Bending
laser with irradiation 100W, 5-mm with diode laser wave laser laser (1.5 MW/ compression and wave CO2 stress of
calibrated with 3ns pulse diameter, 30  104 kW mm2 with 0.8 mm beam at m2 to 12.7 MW/ tension. Laser laser 100 Mpa,
pulse with duration (1.2 101.9 W cm2 wavelength 915 nm, m2), tensile irradiation 15 mm irradiation laser
9.3 ns e3.4 TW cm2) and 20 kJ loadings under diameter with (750 W), irradiation
duration at 509.3 W cm2 thermal 0.202, 0.492, 0.953, 10 kW ‘flat- of
1.5 J energy power output environment 1.935 kW cm2 top’ laser 1 kW cm2
Reference [44] [50] [52] [53] [54] [57] [59] [60] [61] [62]

Table 3a and those under combined loading listed in Table 3b. axis symmetric ring model was applied for the finite element
analysis. The laser pulse was modelled with beam diameter of
20 mm, power density of 3.0 W/mm2, with constant distribution
5. Numerical studies
and 1-s duration. Simulation results demonstrated that the tem-
perature rapidly decreased in the surface layer and did not change
5.1. Thermal mechanical response
much below 4 mm depth. The critical power density Pc was
confirmed to be a reliable measure of thermal shock strength for
The finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted for analysing
the laminated C/C composite and was corresponding to the critical
transient heat conduction and thermal stress of laminated carbon-
temperature difference in the traditional quenching test. The
carbon (C/C) composite in Ref. [24]. A cylindrical model of 50 mm
asymptotical value of Pc was found to be around 2 W/mm2 on the
diameter and 12 mm height in MARC program was used to simulate
maximum negative shear stress and 2.8 W/mm2.
the experimental specimen which was irradiated at its upper sur-
The ultrasonic wave generated by short pulse laser could be
face by a laser pulse in the FEA. The material used is laminated C/C
optically absorbed by composite material to cause thermal expan-
composite with 7.8 MPa shear strength, 137.3 MPa compressive
sion, and FEA is very handy in dealing with thermoelastic problems
strength, and 606 MPa tensile strength. The isotropic and homo-
owing to its adaptivity in modelling complex geometry and
geneous material is modified for the laminated C/C composite
obtaining full field numerical solutions. Wang et al. [63] developed
materials assuming that the material is regarded to be equivalently
a finite element model of laser ultrasonic generation in thin
homogeneous. Totally 975 elements with an arbitrary quadrilateral

Table 3a
A summary of damages identified in the experimental studies. A summary of damage mode identified in the experimental studied under single loading.

Laser energy (0.8e6) W$cm2 (5/10/36/64) W$cm2 101.9e509.3 W cm2 30  104 kW cm2 1.49 GW cm2 3.54  104 GW cm2
output

Material PEEK (carbon/epoxy, CFRP (4/6/8 plies) CFRP (2/4/6 plies) T300, P100 CFRP (8 plies) CFRP
glass/epoxy)

Damage Delamination Ignition; combustion; resin matrix Internal flames; ignite fuel Laser-induced Delamination Drilling holes;
removal; mass loss mechanism swelling evaporation
References [28] [19] [52] [53] [44] [34]

Laser energy 50 W 1.1 J 20 kJ

output

Material CFRP CFRP SR-3136 thermoplastic composite

Damage Temperature-activated chemical reactions; pyrolysis charring; Drill through; interlaminar thermal damage; Full penetration; significant swelling
breaks within the continuous medium; delamination cracks ablation; pyrolysis
References [26] [39,40] [57]

Table 3b
A summary of damages identified in the experimental studies. A summary of damage mode identified in the experimental studied under combined loading.

Combined loading 1.27 kW cm2, (0.202/0.492/0.953/1.935) kW$cm2, 10 kW, tension 1 kW cm2,

Tensile load, Tensile and compressive load Bending stress
Thermal environment

Materials CFRP T700/603 Graphite-epoxy composite GFRP

Damage Delamination Complete fracture; fibre drag break; delamination; buckling Penetration Resin sublimation
References [59] [60] [58] [62]
1282 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
transversely isotropic fibre-reinforced laminate composite to study
this phenomenon, coupled with thermal conductive equation and
thermo-elastic mechanism generation equation. Specifically, they
studied the structural response of a thin fibre-reinforced composite
plate to normal-direction laser line irradiation. The transient tem-
perature and temperature gradient field were calculated, and the
laser-generated transient Lamb waves were obtained. The ther-
moelastically generated waves were calculated in a thin fibre-
reinforced composite plate (40e400 mm thickness) which was
meshed by elements by 20 mm in length. The laser energy was
13.5 mJ and the pulse rise time was 10 ns, and the radius of the
pulsed laser spot on the sample surface was 300 mm. The material
properties used in the calculation including thermal conductive
coefficient, density, thermal capacity, Young’s modulus, and ther-
mal expansion coefficient were pre-specified. The results obtained
from numerical simulation clearly showed that the evolution of the
dispersive waveform was a function of the target distance and the
plate thickness. In addition, the velocity of Lamb wave propagating
along the fibre direction was found faster than that normal to the
fibre direction. The dispersive nature of Lamb waveform in two
directions was found to be different.
In the numerical study conducted by Leplat et al. [26], a 2D axil-
symmetrical approach which neglected edge effects was used. The
test coupon (80 mm  80 mm) was discretised into a Cartesian
regular mesh composed of 40  16 cells, and the exact same
boundary conditions as in the experiment were introduced into the
computation which took account the laser heating distribution and
all surface exchanged with the test chamber. All physical properties
of the material including thermal conductivity tensor, specific heat,
density, porosity, permeability tensor, spectral emissivity/absorp-
tivity, and model parameters (Arrhenius coefficient for chemical
reactions kinetics, heat of reactions) were assessed experimentally
using ONERA facilities. Likewise, the space distribution of the heat
flux density generated by the laser was assessed prior to the ex-
periments. The thermal response obtained from the numerical
simulation showed that heat transfer from the exposed face caused
the temperature of the condensed phase grow to cause pyrolysis of
the matrix into a considerable depth through the laminate. M21
matrix was found to decompose faster than the resin as tempera-
ture grew inside the laminate and offered preferential paths for
cracks propagation within resin-rich regions between fibre tows.
The numerical simulation involved heat and mass (decomposition
gas) transfer model within homogenised porous media and was
proved to agree well on thermal response of the laminate subjected
to stead laser flux from experiments, although the delamination
cracks interacting with heat diffusion and gas transport processes
were neglected. The transformations of the material were found to
induce the gas-phase creation at high temperature and high pres-
sure because of temperature raised fast enough to active the
thermo-chemical reactions on the exposed surface.
Tresansky et al. [64] presented a numerical heat transfer model
to capture heat flow and material damage to polymer/carbon fibre-
reinforced composites subjected to laser beam irradiation. COMSOL
Multiphysics® numerical modelling program which included
packages for heat transfer, fluid dynamics, electro-optics, solid
mechanics, electricity and magnetism was used to establish the
computational heat transfer model. A 2.5 mm thick, 20 ply carbon
fibre/epoxy laminate was tested using Cytec 5215 prepreg with a 1K
tow in plain-weave architecture. A 16 inch  16 inch panel was
made by first debulking three sets of six plies under vacuum for
30 min before curing at 200  C for 3 h under vacuum. A Gaussian-
profile, surface heat flux to simulate the laser, forced convection,
and surface to ambient radiation was applied to the top surface of
the selected axisymmetric model. A 1/4-inch-thick sheet of Acrylite
GP was modelled as a surface absorber for a 1070 nm, 6.12 mm 1/e2
diameter Gaussian beam with 107 W of total power. Material data
related to the thermochemical characteristics experimentally
determined was used by the model. A mesh was created with 40
elements in the radial direction and 180 in the through-thickness
direction. A numerical technique of varying the material proper-
ties was employed to simulate material removal. The model was
validated by the experiment. A 100-W-nomial power, Yb:YAG fibre-
coupled laser produced by IPG Photonics that lases at 1070 nm was
measured using a 5 silica wedge-beam splitter and a Spiricon
SP620U profiler with BeamGage software. Additionally, the CFRP
laminate was tested for comparison with the theoretical model. It
was found that the model was unable to predict the experimentally
observed laser-drilled hole evolution. Also, the model predicted a
higher recession rate than experimentally observed result. A
recession rate of 3.06 mm/s in the Acryilite, which was 7.6% greater
than the experimental results was obtained.
Boer et al. [65] modelled the thermo-mechanical responses of
the CFRP laminates to continuous laser irradiation using finite
element method in which a technique of coupling and decoupling
the Degree of Freedom (DOF) was employed for interlaminar
cracking simulation. A quarter CFRP laminate was modelled under
laser irradiation. The laser beam was modelled to be of radius 5 mm
and perpendicularly irradiating the CFRP laminate, while the sur-
face heat flux 6.37  106 W/m2, 10.19  106 W/m2 and
12.74  106 W/m2 were applied on areas where under direct irra-
diation in the three cases. Numerical results indicated that the in-
crease in laser power would only increase the temperature
magnitudes, and that the high displacement gradient occurred near
the edge of the laser spot inducing large shear stress therein. Also,
the maximum normal stress acted on the interface between adja-
cent laminae was higher than 20 MPa and the maximum shear
stress higher than 25 MPa, which was around half the interlaminar
strength of the CFRP laminates under room temperature [66]. The
progressive cracking was observed at the backward surface of the
specimen under 800 W laser irradiation during the unloading stage
and the interface cracks propagate as specimen cooled down.
In addition, a 3D thermal model (coded in MATLAB®) was used
to interpret the laser-CFRP interaction resulting in heating and
decomposition [27]. The model was meshed by 30  30 uniform
elements in the plane perpendicular to the incoming laser, with an
element for each carbon fibre ply in the parallel direction. The
changing material properties were assumed first to be a function of
evolving CFRP decomposition phase, in proportion to the relative
amounts of each decomposition phase present in each cell. The
incident laser intensity distribution was measured throughout each
experiment, combined into an average irradiance map and inputted
into the thermal model. At the laser spot the temperature peaked to
634  C after 30 s at a laser irradiation of 9.9 W/cm2. Working out-
ward the edges of the panel maintained an average temperature of
100  C. The overall specimen temperature distribution was radially
symmetrical. Modelling CFRP without the endothermic reaction
enthalpies or volatile heat capacity increased the final backside
temperatures by 100  C and 90  C at 5 W/cm2 and 10 W/cm2 laser
intensity, respectively. In all combustion cases, model temperatures
during cool down were underestimated due to combustion being
neglected in the heat transfer model.
5.2. Ablation behaviour
Temperature patterns of the CFRP being irradiated by contin-
uous wave laser, long duration pulsed wave laser and short dura-
tion pulsed wave laser were analysed using finite element method
in the study of Wu et al. [34] in which the specimens were modelled
axis-symmetrically. An axis-symmetrical finite element model was
set up to analyse the thermo-physical responses of the specimens
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
(50 mm  50 mm  4.1 mm). The flow of the sublimation product
was neglected. The power density for continuous wave laser, long
pulsed laser (200 ns pulse duration), and short pulsed laser (10 ns
pulse duration) was 3.54  106 W/m2, 1.50  1012 W/m2, and
3.00  1013 W/m2 respectively. All lasers were designed to irradiate
the square CFRP specimens for 10 s. The numerical computation
was carried out with the minimum time step of 0.25 ns to allow one
round of heating and cooling complete in each time step. It was
found that the peak temperature remained stable under continuous
laser irradiation, while pulsed wave laser irradiation would result
in stable temperature after ultra-high temperature (over 25000 K)
caused by first laser pulse evaporating the surface carbon fibre
fabric. The numerical results showed that the laser power density
threshold was around 3.0  1013 W/m2 to trigger optical break-
down hence making the irradiating ineffective.
A three-dimensional model taking the difference of ablation
performance along different fibre orientations and the laminated
structure of composites into consideration was established to study
the ablation characteristics, temperature distribution, heat affected
zone (HAZ), and the ablation morphologies of composite laminates
impacted by laser [67]. Governing equations for energy conserva-
tion, mass conservation and momentum conservation were pre-
sented in details. An air flow at 0.029 Mach was introduced in this
study, erosion was neglected to simplify the problem so that surface
ablation could be assumed to be governed mainly by the oxidation
of material. As stated by Deng et al. [68], the oxidation was com-
parable with erosion of fibre only when flow velocity was higher
than 0.5 Mach. The heat flux from the laser beam was modelled by a
circular 2D Gaussian function, and the laser beam was modelled to
normally hit the carbon fibre composites by 38 W power output
with the laser radius of 1.25 mm. A quarter of the CFRP laminate of
20 mm  20 mm  0.56 mm was modelled considering the sym-
metry. The models were solved by the FEA and the deformed ge-
ometry of COMSOL was adopted to simulate the interface
migration. The T300 carbon fibre and E-51 epoxy with initial
porosity of 0.06 was chosen, and the volume fraction of fibre and
resin was 0.64 and 0.3 respectively. Computational results indicated
the direction of heat transfer within material changed by time
owing to different fibre orientations in adjacent layers, which
created a non-monotonic line of material surface temperature, and
the shape of HAZ changed over time. The deviation of temperature
along different axis was distinct within the laser spot and gradually
decreased as ablation time elapsed.
A numerical study was further conducted [35] in which com-
posite laminate (200 mm  200 mm  1.5 mm) was modelled using
eight node bilinear secondary hot shell element in ABAQUS.
Boundary conditions were exactly the same as those in the exper-
imental study, and Simpson integration method with 3 integration
points, coupled with external laser loading program coded by
Fortan, was used to simulate the laser loading (power density of
50 W/cm2, laser beam radius of 10 mm, 20 mm, and 30 mm). Elastic
modulus and other thermophysical properties were according to
literatures [69,70]. Numerical results revealed the strain value
decreased as further away from the centre of the laser spot, which
aligned with the experimental findings. In addition, the maximum
strain occurred at the 90 degree at the concentric circle of the
laminate, which was at least 1.5 times of the value at 0 degree.
Additionally, the increasing of laser spot radius was found to be
capable of exerting a sudden shock upon the laminate, causing the
strain at the same location to increase as well. The maximum de-
viation of 18.4% was identified in the 10 mm beam radius test, and
the temperature rise effect in the experiments was 16.9% at most,
which suggested the numerical model was reasonably reliable.
Chang et al. [71] further investigated the ablation temperature
filed and recession rate of the carbon/epoxy composite laminate
1283
subject to laser irradiation with the creating of the finite element
ablation model with variation in boundary conditions. They
selected T300/epoxy resin laminate with 20 plies and 4 mm
thickness. CO2 continuous laser with an intensity of 1.528 kW/cm2
and 3.82 kW/cm2 was employed to irradiate specimens at a 10 mm
diameter spot. The specimen was shaped in 5 cm  5 cm, and the
SEM was used to monitor the ablation. The ablation was assumed to
be one-dimensional (only long the thickness of laminate) in the
cases of high energy lasers irradiating composite laminate for short
time. ABAQUS software was used to model the two-dimensional
parts which was further used to calculate the ablation over thick-
ness of the laminate. 0.1 mm  4.0 mm rectangular shape was
created in ‘part’ mode, and elements were discretised into 10  400
with 10 mm DC2D4 elements. Using integrating sphere method and
Lambda900 spectrograph, the laser energy absorbing coefficient
was measured to be 0.86. The thermal radiation coefficient and
thermal convection coefficient was set to be 0.92 and 187 W/
(m2$ C), respectively [72]. A python program was designed to
realize that thermal load affecting zone varying with time, and
control the whole finite element analysis. Results showed the
temperature gradient was relatively steep at locations near the
laser spot, and the ablation has reached balance very soon. When
laser irradiation intensity reaches 1.528 kW/cm2, the irradiated
surface was ablated at a recession rate of 0.15 mm/s and pyrolysis
thickness was around 0.08 mm. At laser irradiation intensity of
3.82 kW/cm2, the irradiated surface was ablated at a recession rate
of 0.77 m/s and around 0.05 mm pyrolysis thickness.
5.3. Dynamic response
The degradation of material property, burn-out and induced
thermal loading due to rapid laser heating will greatly influence the
dynamic responses of the composite laminate. The thermal inter-
laminar forces and bending moments would be induced when
composite laminate was heated nonuniformly and combined with
other thermal effects it would pose great change in dynamic
behaviour such as vibration amplitude of the composite laminate.
Chen et al. [73] studied the transient response of laminated plates
to combined mechanical load and laser irradiation. In their study, a
moving organic-matrix composite plate suddenly subjected to
uniform and highly intense laser irradiation was examined.
Initially, a modified Crank-Nicholson finite difference scheme
which incorporated the effects of surface ablation, degradation of
thermophysical properties and heat loss through radiation and
convection was employed to analyse temperature distribution and
sublimation reaction. Then mechanical load was combined with
thermal load which was evaluated by the temperature distribution.
The burn-out geometry configuration from previous step was used
to conduct forced vibration analysis wherein both small and large
deflection composite plate theories were adopted. The specimen
was modelled as a 20-ply graphite/epoxy laminate with
½±; 90; 03 ; ±; 90; 03 2 sequence and 30.48 cm  2.54 cm  0.25 cm
plate. A nine-node isoparametric plate finite element was
employed. Laser was irradiating at the top or bottom surface of the
specimen, coupled with transverse loads. Both laser irradiation and
transverse loads were step functions of time. 0.25 kw/cm2, 1.0 kw/
cm2, and 2.5 kw/cm2 were applied on the entire top surface of the
specimen, which was simply supported at its shorter edges having
in-plane motion suppressed. A Mach 0.3 airflow was applied to pass
over the plate surface. Computational results showed that the
amplitude of the oscillation was governed by the magnitude and
rise time of the induced thermal bending moments and plate
bending rigidity. The most significant oscillation occurred in the
case of 1.0 kw/cm2 laser irradiation. Also, with the irradiated
1284 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
surface different from the pressure surface, vibration was elevated.
The change in the stiffness and mass density of composite laminate
was also indicated, and the laser irradiation was found to increase
the peak amplitudes of vibration in all cases. However, the dynamic
response of composite laminates was influenced by laser intensity
with the location of the plate surface being irradiated. Higher laser
power ensured neither greater escalation nor reduction of the
vibration.
Chen et al. [72] studied the effects of laser irradiation on
strength reduction and on the dynamic and buckling characteristics
of organic-matrix composite laminates. The heat-transfer process
was modelled by a modified Crank-Nicholson finite difference
scheme. In this study, a moving composite plate (20 ply
30.48 cm  2.54 cm  0.254 cm graphite/epoxy laminated com-
posite) was assumed to be suddenly exposed to highly intensive
laser irradiation (1.33 kW/cm2 and 2.79 kW/cm2). A Mach 0.3
airflow was assumed to pass over the lamina. A nine-node iso-
parametric plate finite element was employed. Computational re-
sults showed that the higher the laser intensity, the faster the
degradation and the ablation of the material property. It also
showed that the worsening of material degradation and material
removal did not result in monotonical decreasing of the natural
frequency. The buckling load was found to have significantly
reduced as the laser exposure time increased.
5.4. Damage analysis
Complex chemical and physical processes including pyrolysis of
matrix, formation and growth of pores and char, oxidation of re-
sidual char and carbon fibres, thermal expansion and contraction,
matrix cracking, and delamination may occur when CFRP com-
posite with epoxy matrix was exposed to thermal environment
[39]. Fig. 3 shows section morphologies and surface topography of a
2 mm thick autoclave cured CFRP laminate from CCF-700 carbon
Fig. 3. Cross section morphologies and the surface topography of CFRP laminates bring drilled under pulsed infrared laser [39].
fibre and BA9916-II resin matrix under infrared laser of wavelength
1064 nm, pulse duration 200ns and repetitive frequency 10 Hz for
6 s, 8 s, and 10 s irradiation time by common optical microscope
and 3D microscope. An Arrhenius-Equation based model with
multi-step decomposition was employed to describe the mass-loss
behaviour of CFRP composite under elevated temperature by Zhao
et al. [56]. Additionally, a mesoscopic to macroscopic model
including thermal degradation of both matrix and fibres for
obtaining the thermo-mechanical properties of the CFRP composite
under heating, along with a progressive destruction program was
employed for theoretical predictions. Specimens were predicted to
fail in a progressive damage way at elevated temperatures, with the
failure sequence of 90 plies, ± 45 plies and 0 plies. Young’s
modulus and residual strength decays predicted by the analytical
model was in well agreement with experiment observation.
Zhang et al. [74] developed a parametric program using APDL
language from ANSYS, based on three-dimensional Hashin princi-
ple to study the accumulative damage of laminated composites
under laser erosion. Specifically, the initiation, propagation and
structural damage of the macroscopic failure after laser erosion on
the composite laminates containing holes were simulated, yielding
cloud charts of damages of different layers under inner static strain.
T300/KH304 [75] composite laminates containing hole with
different diameter (6.21, 7.97, 6.19, 6.15, 6.22, and 6.21 mm) and ply
angle were selected. The SOLID46 laminate element in ANSYS was
chosen for discretization, and refinements were applied near the
hole where stress concentration was likely to occur. For unpene-
trated laser erosion, the part being irradiated drastically decreased
in strength. Specifically, at erosion depth of 1.24 mm and 0.62 mm,
the failure load for composite laminate was calculated to be
38.39 kN and 50.36 kN, respectively, as compared to the failure load
of 63.57 kN when no laser erosion exerted upon composite lami-
nate. By analysing the damage propagation, it was found that the
damage initiated from the ply with the largest angle and
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
propagated to the ply with the smallest angle. The damages at the
plies with larger angles were found to be mostly cracks, as opposed
to the fractures at the plies with smaller angles.
Chang et al. [76] presented a numerical study investigating the
progressive damage regulation of graphite fibre/epoxy laminate
under combined effects of laser and mechanical loading. An
improved bridging model based on the one-dimensional ablation
model was adopted to calculate the tensile strength of the laminate
under different laser power density and irradiation time. Repre-
sentative volume element (RVE) was introduced into their study to
calculate stiffness attenuation and laminate thermal stress. The AS/
3501-6 composite laminate with [45 /-45 /90 /0 /0 /0 /0 /-45 /
45 /0 /0 ]S layup sequence and 0.62 fibre volume fraction was
selected. The specimen was modelled into 2.54 cm3 cube. The
progressive damage under laser irradiation (1.0 kW/cm2 and
2.5 kW/cm2) for 0.5, 1.0, and 5 s was calculated. Calculation showed
that the maximum tensile load the laminate can withstand
decreased as irradiation time prolonged, and the decreasing rate
was associated with the laser irradiation intensity. At 1.0 kW/cm2
intensity, the carbon fibre was not fractured thus remained to carry
most of the loadings. However, at 2.5 kW/cm2, both fibres and resin
matrices were burned out very quickly, followed by the failure of
the main load-carrying plies (0 plies) after which the tensile
strength plummeted.
Liu et al. [77] developed a multiscale based bridge model to
predict the progressive damage of carbon epoxy composite under
the combined laser and mechanical loading. Firstly, the thermal
response of the composite plate was evaluated by means of an
ablation model. The ablation process was divided into three forms,
i.e. heat exchange, matrix decomposition, and carbon fibre subli-
mation, based on the different responses of the composite plate
under laser irradiation. The model was employed to obtain the
ablation temperature field and recession rate of the carbon/epoxy
composite laminate. The numerical results were compared with the
laser irradiation experiments of the composite material laminates,
subjected to a high-power CO2 laser with a power density of
1.528 kW/cm2 and 3.82 kW/cm2 respectively. The numerical and
experimental results were found to be comparable. Moreover, the
bridge model (multiscale bridge model) was revised based on the
Ramberg Osgood model, using the polynomial strengthening
model for reducing the input parameters of the matrix. Thus, the
improved bridge model was found to be capable of dealing with
existing thermal stresses in the thickness direction while predicting
the progressive damage and the ultimate strength of composite
plate.
The high intensity laser beam may incur damage to the com-
posite structure by heat re-radiation even without penetration or
material degradation at the target’s surface. From the military point
of view, this is extremely useful as far as the laser lethality of UAVs
and helicopters is concerned. In order to explore this possibility, an
explicit uni-dimensional heat transfer model was developed at the
Naval Research Laboratory to study the heat re-radiation from a
carbon-fibre composite skin to the internal components [78].
Although this model was a unidimensional model, i.e. it did not
account for the changing material properties of the carbon fibre
composite, it did provide useful insights to the researchers inter-
ested in exploring the heat re-radiation laser effects on composite
materials. Mechanical analysis on composite failure revealed that
the tensile strength occurred at the 9th lamina failure. At the 9th
lamina, the fibre strength was 21000 MPa which revealed the
composite’s ultimate tensile strength did not occur at the 0 lamina
breakage moment. The temperature did not change the modulus of
carbon fibre, but the extent of ablation was associated with com-
posite strength. Under coupled laser, tensile load and composite
strength were influenced by the fibre strength variation of
1285
0 laminas. Fibre strength of lamina coordination larger than
1.8 mm was maintained at a lower stage (532 MPa). The fibre
strength of laminas 1.0 mme1.8 mm showed a gradual decline. At
this point, the composite strength reduced by 50% although the
fibre did not record any ablation activities. The phenomenon can be
explained by the fact that under high temperature, the matrix
decomposition was induced by laser irradiation.
Ablation was only reported to occur at the 1st lamina. In this
case, the composite strength decreased because of the matrix
decomposition. Liu et al. [77] further noted that the 1e4th laminas
were ablation with a residual thickness of irradiation being
observed in the region of 2.0 mm. After laser irradiation, only 25% of
the composite strength remained. Two reasons can explain the
observations: 1) fibre ablation induced thickness loss of the com-
posite, and 2) the temperature that increased through the com-
posite thickness caused the degradation of the fibre strength. In
summation, it was found that the tensile strength of the composite
plate was controlled by the high strength fibres at the 0 lamina,
while fibre ablation laminas and matrix decomposition hardly
influenced the strength of the composite plate. The findings agreed
with those from the previous literatures that carbon fibre ablation
and epoxy matrix thermal decomposition were the primary dam-
age modes for degrading carbon/epoxy composites under directed
energy such as laser irradiation [72,73,75]. Carbon fibre ablation
and epoxy matrix thermal decomposition were the main damage
modes on composite strength decrease.
Kujawinska et al. [79] conducted experimental study to inves-
tigate the interaction of a high power near-IR laser beam and
composite material samples composed of sandwich structures of
fibre-reinforced polymer, and to determine the symptoms and ef-
fects against UAV’s airframe shell by a laser beam. Specimens of
carbon and glass fabric woven resin shells and carbon reinforced/
epoxy laminate were irradiated by impulse laser beam Nd:YAG
laser with 1.06 mm wavelength. The specimen was illuminated with
10 impulses of 5J each. The laser had a maximum power of 20 kW.
3D digital imaging projected the interaction of the specimens and
laser beam as displacement maps and temperature maps. An
infrared camera (FLIR SC 7500) near the back surface of the spec-
imen took the maps. Two-100 W LED reflectors were used to
enhance illumination on the specimen. DIC software (VIC 3D) was
used to process the recorded images. The specimens were made of
sandwich structures for typical UAVs which composed of two car-
bon and glass fibre woven fabrics face-sheets reinforced by a foam-
core. The results obtained indicated that glass-reinforced sandwich
required a smaller number of laser impulses to start degradation of
the composite structure compared to the carbon-reinforced sand-
wich of the same thickness (5 mm). On the other hand, carbon-
reinforced sandwich needed approximately twice the number of
laser impulses to disintegrate compared to the carbon reinforced
laminate. Specimens reinforced with a foam-core had a better
strength and resistance to the laser beam pulses. A decrease in the
thickness of the foam-core, however, resulted in the reduction in
strength of the composite structure. A specimen of a 1.5 mm thick
core was destructed more severely compared to a sample with a
5 mm foam-core.
5.5. Other studies
Boley et al. [80] developed models of laser interactions with
composite materials consisting of fibres embedded within a matrix.
A detailed ray trace model that can calculate the absorptivity and
energy enhancement of composite materials, starting with the
optical parameters of the constituents and the material structure
was established to serve as components of a comprehensive model
of composite behaviour under the effects of laser radiation. The ray
1286 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288

Table 4
A summary of numerical studies.

Research Focus References Materials Loading Software Failure mode

Transient heat conduction, thermal [24] Carbon-carbon Beam of 3.0 W mm2 power density MARC program Not applicable
stress (C/C)
composite
[73] Graphite/ Laser irradiation with 0.25 kW cm2, 1.0 kW cm2 Not applicable Ablation
epoxy laminate 2.5 kW cm2, transverse loads
Laser ultrasonic generation [63] Thin fibre- Laser with 13.5 mJ and 10 ns pulse duration Not applicable Not applicable
reinforced
composite
plate
Heat flow and material damage [64] Polymer/ 100-W-nomial power, Yb:YAG fibre-coupled laser COMSOL Not applicable
carbon fibre- Multiphysics®
reinforced numerical modelling
composite program
2
[35] T300/AG80 Laser beam, 50 W cm power density, beam radius of 10 mm, ABAQUS software, Not applicable
composite 20 mm, 30 mm. Fortran
laminate
Thermo-mechanical responses [65] CFRP laminate Laser beam of radius 5 mm with heat flux 6.37  106 W m2, Not applicable Progressive
. 10.19  106 W m2 and 12.74  106 W m2 cracking; interface
propagate
[34] CFRP laminate Continuous wave laser, long pulsed laser (200 ns pulse Axis-symmetrical Ablation; epoxy
duration), short pulsed laser (10 ns pulse duration) with finite element model matrix
3.54  106 W m2, 1.50  1012 W m2, and 3.00  1013 W m2 sublimation
respectively
Laser-CFRP interaction [27] CFRP laminate Laser irradiation with 9.9 W cm2 MATLAB® coded 3D Combustion;
thermal model decomposition
Ablation characteristics, [67] CFRP laminate 38 W power output laser beam with 1.25 mm laser radius Finite element Ablation
temperature distribution, heat method and
affected zone (HAZ), ablation Deformed Geometry
morphologies of COMSOL
Ablation temperature field, [71] T300/epoxy CO2 continuous laser with intensity of 1.528 kW cm2 and ABAQUS Ablation; pyrolysis
recession rate resin laminate 3.82 kW cm2
Strength reduction, dynamic and [72] Organic-matrix Laser irradiation (1.33 kW cm2 and 2.79 kW cm2) Not applicable Ablation; material
buckling characteristic composite removal.
laminate
Accumulative damage [74] T300/KH304 Laser irradiation ANSYS Interlaminar
composite cracks
laminates
Progressive damage [76] AS/3501-6 Laser irradiation (1.0 kW cm2 and 2.5 kW cm2) Not applicable Fibre/resin burn
composite out; main load-
laminate carrying plies
failure
[77] Carbon/epoxy High-power CO2 laser (1.528 kW cm2 and 3.82 kW cm2) ABAQUS Progressive
composite damage
laminate

trace model was found to be sufficient for the description of
carbon-based composites. The calculation of the absorptivity of the
composite material for different frequencies of incident radiation
and the energy enhancement was presented. It was concluded that
the ray trace model would be more time consuming when applied
to glass fibre-based composites. Additionally, their approach was
able to calculate the energy deposition in the material which could
be part of a predictive thermomechanical description of material
behaviour under the effects of high-power laser radiation.
A summary of the numerical studies is given in Table 4 with the
loading situation, materials and structured modelled, software
used for the modelling and the typical failure mode for each
research focus.
6. Summary
In this paper we presented a review of literature on damage to
aircraft composite structures caused by directed energy systems.
We firstly discussed the application of composite materials in the
aircraft structures and the common types of directed energy sys-
tems and the mechanisms of their effect. We then presented a
detailed literature review on the reported experimental and nu-
merical studies of aircraft composite structures subject to the effect
of energy systems. The general damage mechanisms of laser sys-
tems hitting aircraft composite structures, and the failure behav-
iour of composite materials under combined laser and mechanical
loadings are particularly reported.
The experimental studies reported include the investigation on
the thermos-mechanical response, the ablation behaviour caused
due to laser energy dissipating in the plasma layer near the target
surface, the interlaminar damage mechanism and other damage
mechanism of various composites (CFRP, GFRP, etc). The effects
from both sole laser loading and combined laser and mechanical
loading are included. It was found that most of the reported
experimental studies were mainly focused on CFRP laminate
composites-. Laser systems are found generally effective against
target of composites; however, complete destruction of the target
will require extremely powerful output and for a considerably long
duration.
Numerical studies including thermal-mechanical response,
ablation behaviour, interlaminar effects and dynamic response of
composite materials under laser irradiations are reviewed. These
numerical studies further provide an insight into the damage
mechanisms of laminate composites under laser irradiation. A va-
riety of numerical methods have been employed to simulate and
analyse the sort of problem, which paves the way of establishing
 Y.X. Zhang et al. / Defence Technology 17 (2021) 1269e1288
generic models of composite interaction with energy systems.
Despite the fruitfulness of the current research, a few gaps for
further research to fill are identified in this paper. Hitherto most of
the experimental studies have been focused on CFRP. There is still a
large room for further research on other types of composites
including carbon-carbon composite, Kevlar -epoxy composite,
GFRP and window glass composite responding to energy hitting.
Especially, studies that compare the performance of different types
of composite laminate to withstand consistent laser irradiation
would be highly constructive. In addition, studies on the distinction
of different types of energy system with identical power output
impact on the same targets are highly recommended for future
research to understand the effects of the different energy systems.
For numerical analysis, there are also room to further investigate
the numerical algorithm for better simulation of the contact and
impact between the direct energy and the target. More accurate
material models for the composites considering the high energy
impact effects will need to be further developed. In addition,
studies focusing on parallel contrast between the accuracy and
efficiency of different numerical models on simulating laser effects
on composites are also yet to be sufficed. Finally a recommendation
for further research is to conduct experimental and computational
investigation on prediction of the residual strength of composite
structures subject to laser damage for the purpose of structure
integrity assessment.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
Funding support from Department of Defence, Australia is
acknowledged. The authors acknowledge the advice and valuable
suggestions on this research and paper writing from Dr. John Wang
from Defence Science and Technology Group, Australia.
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