Abstract
In this paper, a new efficient numerical method based on the finite element method (FEM) and the frequency domain summation (FDS) strategy is proposed for the simulation of the pulsed infrared thermography non-destructive testing. With use of the FDS strategy, the temperature distribution due to a pulsed thermal source is simulated based on the thermal response of series of single-frequency sinusoidal heat sources. An interpolation strategy is also adopted to reduce the necessary number of harmonic frequency responses to be calculated, and consequently the simulation time is saved. A comparison of the FDS strategy and the direct time domain integration method is also presented, which indicates that the FDS strategy can simulate pulsed thermography problem with high precision and can promote simulation efficiency.