Abstract: The study of computational methods for the temperature distribution in a composite laminate under various boundary conditions such as prescribed surface temperature,specified heat flux and/or prescribed environmental temperature surrounding the laminate is pramically important.In order to obtain the temperature distribution in a composite structure subjected to an arbitrary thermal loading efficiently and accurately, there are two problems to be solved,namely,the establishment of the mathematical model and physical model,and the selection of the numerical procedure for solving the thermal equilibrium equation.In the present paper, the establishment of the physical model of the composite laminate following its micro-characteristics and the derivation of both space element and time-spare element matrices are given.The computational results show that the use of the lumped mass matrix will lead to a more accurate result than that of the consistent mass matrix,and the use of the time-space element will lead to a more accurate result than that of the space element as well.Meanwhile,the computational results chow again that since the conductivity of composite materials is very poor, a significant temperature gradient will arise near the heating surface of the laminate,the distortion of the composite laminate thug induced is not to be ignored in the design and analysis.