Abstract: In order to apply liquid crystal optical elements in high power solid pulsed laser facility,the laser damage on liquid crystal optical elements was studied based on simulation and experiments.The physical mode of laser thermal damage on liquid crystal optical elements was built and temperature distribution was calculated at certain incident laser energy density,the laser damage threshold of the polyimide film and liquid crystal material were measured and the laser damage mechanism and threshold of the liquid crystal optical elements were attained.The results indicate that laser damage on the liquid crystal optical elements mainly origin from the decomposition of liquid crystal material and polyimide film under the laser induced high temperature conditions,the laser damage threshold could be improved through optimizing their structural and physical parameters.