Basic Experiments on Synthetic Aperture Ultrasonic Imaging

The application of synthetic aperture ultrasonic imaging technique to nondestructive testing of material is discussed. A prototype synthetic aperture ultrasonic imaging system has been developed to improve the lateral resolution. The diverging beam transducer is moved along the surface and a tomographic image is obtained within one minute. Experiments carried out on steel block specimens verified the capability to reconstruct tomographic images in high lateral resolution.