Effect of highly-porous and lightweight carbon nanotube sponges on the high-power continuous wave laser ablation resistance of the sandwich panel was investigated experimentally. As a comparison, thermal responses of monolithic plate, carbon nanotube film filled sandwich panel, unfilled sandwich panel and carbon nanotube sponge filled sandwich panel subjected to continuous wave laser irradiation were analyzed. Experimental results showed that the laser resistance of the carbon nanotube filled sandwich panel is obviously higher than the unfilled structure. The added failure time of the sandwich panel by filling the cores with the carbon nanotube sponge of unit mass was about 18 times and 33 times longer than that by filling with the conventional ablative and insulated material. It could be understood by the high thermal diffusion coefficient and latent heat of sublimation of the carbon nanotube sponge. During ablation by the continuous wave, the carbon nanotube sponge not only fast consumed the absorbed laser energy through phase change of a large-area material due to its high latent heat of sublimation, but also quickly dispersed the heat energy introduced by the continuous wave laser due to its high thermal diffusion coefficient, leading to the extraordinary laser ablation resistance.
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