Phase superposition processing for ultrasonic imaging

In order to improve the resolution of defect reconstruction for non-destructive evaluation, a new phase superposition processing (PSP) method has been developed on the basis of a synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT). The proposed method synthesizes the magnitudes of phase-superposed delayed signal groups. A satisfactory image can be obtained by a simple algorithm processing time domain radio frequency signals directly. In this paper, the theory of PSP is introduced, and some simulation and experimental results illustrating the advantage of PSP are given. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited