Advanced thermal protection structures with sandwich type are widely used in the aerospace equipment.However,due to the complex structure composed of plate surface and sandwich structure,together with the comprehensive effect of flow field in the channel,the heat transfer mechanism of above structures is complex and strongly coupled.It is difficult to carry out accurate calculation,simulation or experiments with the reflecting of the real structure and the actual working conditions.To this end,devoting to providing reliable technical support for the design,simulation,experiments and optimization of the aircraft thermal protection structures,this article selects the honeycomb sandwich structure,corrugated sandwich structure and lattice sandwich structure to summarize the research progresses of the flow and heat transfer mechanism corresponding to the major research teams at home and abroad in recent years.Specially,for the lattice sandwich structure,detailed introductions range from the tetrahedral,pyramid to the X-shaped and Kagome lattice structures.The distinguishing features and development history of the above three thermal protection structures are described and compared.The heat exchange forms and insulation mechanism under the comprehensive effect of the plate surface and sandwich structure are analyzed.Finally,the shortcomings of existing researches and development trends are summarized.It can be seen that compared with honeycomb and corrugated sandwich structures,lattice sandwich structure has the characteristics of high efficiency with heat transfer and low temperature gradient due to the existence of torrent,which has a better potential in the heat protection.