Numerical and experimental study on thermal shock damage of CVD ZnS infrared window material

•Transient temperature and thermal stress fields of CVD ZnS are simulated with FEM.•Thermal shock damage behavior is investigated by oxygen propane flame experiments.•Surface temperature increases sharply in short time results in a high thermal stress.•Cracks initiate from the shock region and then propagate towards the outside.•Give some suggests for future engineering application of CVD ZnS on infrared window at supersonic velocity. Hypersonic aircrafts subjected to strong aerodynamic forces and serious aerodynamic heating require a very stringent design of their infrared window. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the thermal shock damage of chemical vapor deposition zinc sulfide (CVD ZnS) infrared window material through finite element analysis and oxygen propane flame experiments. In this paper, a finite element model is developed to simulate the thermal shock behavior of CVD ZnS ablated by an oxygen propane flame. In addition, thermal shock experiments are performed to investigate the thermal shock damage behavior under different conditions. The results show that good agreement between the numerical solutions and the experimental results is achieved. When the heat fluxes are 409.8kW/m2 and 493.3kW/m2, the materials have good thermal shock resistance; when the heat flux is 575.9kW/m2, cracks appeared during the thermal shock resulting in thermal shock damage to the material.