3D photothermal imaging of real subsurface defects in anisotropic media

In this paper, we present a 3D photothermal imaging tool to detect subsurface defects in anisotropic media using the virtual wave concept. In addition, we propose a novel approach to compute the temperature contrast using a virtual wave signal, which enables a temporal noise-free representation of the contrast temperature signal. The results obtained with the proposed imaging tool are compared with those obtained using computed tomography for a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer sample containing a delamination caused by a defined impact. To sum up, this work presents a fast, easily interpretable, and efficient 3D photothermal defect reconstruction and visualization tool.