Generalized synthetic aperture,focused transducer,pulse-echo,ultrasonic scan data processing for non-destructive inspection

A technique has been developed for processing ultrasonic focused transducer pulse-echo scan data for improved non-destructive inspection of subjects having non-smooth or analytically discontinuous front surfaces. Synthetic aperture focusing, phase shifted average processing is used where the entire inspection field is focused. This development was for two dimensions but is easily extended to three. The method uses finite elements to define the front surface geometry and includes an arbitrarily varying transducer scan path. Transducer tilt angle and synthetic aperture may take on a full range of values. A general computer code has been written to perform this processing and so prepare data for imaging. A test/comparison example is given.