Pulsed laser irradiation of nanosecond duration is used in a variety of applications, including laser deposition of thin films and micromachining. Of fundamental interest is the prediction of the evaporative material removal rates, as well as the velocity, density, and temperature distributions of the ejected particles as functions of the laser‐beam pulse energy, temporal distribution, and irradiance density on the target material surface. In order to address these issues, the present work establishes a new computational approach for the thorough treatment of the heat transfer and fluid flow phenomena in pulsed laser processing of metals. The heat conduction in the solid substrate and the liquid melt is solved by a one‐dimensional transient heat transfer model. The ejected high‐pressure vapor generates shock waves against the ambient background pressure. The compressible gas dynamics is computed numerically by solving the system of Euler equations for mass, momentum, and energy, supplemented by an isentropic gas equation of state. The aluminum, copper, and gold targets considered were subjected to pulsed ultraviolet excimer laser irradiation of nanosecond duration. Results are given for the temperature distribution, evaporation rate, and melting depth in the target, as well as the pressure, velocity, and temperature distributions in the vapor phase. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.