Laser conduction limited heating finds wide application in surface processing industry. Modelling of the heating process gives insight into the physical processes involved in conduction limited heating. Moreover, analytical solutions provide functional relation among the parameters that influence the heating process. In the present study, repetitive laser pulse heating of a solid substrate is considered. A closed form solution for the temperature rise including the cooling cycle is obtained using a Laplace transformation method. It is found that the results obtained from the closed form solution agree well with the numerical predictions. The maximum surface temperature rises rapidly once the cooling period between the consecutive pulses reduces. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.