Comparative Data Processing Approaches for Thermal Wave Imaging Techniques for Non-Destructive Testing

Thermal non destructive testing is a whole-field, non-contact and non- destructive inspection method used to reveal the surface or subsurface anomalies in a test sample. This paper describes a novel modelling and simulation technique of a three dimensional pulse compression method for non-stationary thermal imaging. This method requires much lower peak power heat sources than the widely used conventional pulsed thermographic methods (PT and PPT) and requires less time than sinusoidal modulated Lock-in Thermography (LT). In addition, simulation results obtained with the proposed techniques are compared with the conventional phase-based thermal imaging techniques (PPT and LT).

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