Structural ceramics are attracting attention in the development of space planes, aircraft and nuclear fusion reactors because they have excellent wear-resistant and heat-resistant characteristics. However, in some applications it is anticipated that they will be exposed to very-high-temperature environments of the order of thousands of degrees. Therefore, it is very important to investigate their thermal shock characteristics. In this report, the distributions of temperatures and thermal stresses of cylindrically shaped ceramics under irradiation by laser beams are discussed using the finite-element computer code (MARC) with arbitrary quadrilateral axisymmetric ring elements. The relationships between spot diameters of laser beams and maximum values of compressive thermal stresses are derived for various power densities. From these relationships, a critical fracture curve is obtained, and it is compared with the experimental results.
