3D synthetic aperture imaging using a water-jet coupled large aperture single transducer

This paper presents a technique for in-situ non-destructive testing of materials with applications in railway crossings. The novelty is in successfully applying the Virtual Source (VS) concept using water jet coupling for a large transducer. By focusing the sound field at the surface of the sample, the water jet probe can be built with a small nozzle opening, limiting the water consumption and making it viable for field applications. The annular geometry of the large transducer ensures the spherical wavefront assumed in the application of the SAFT algorithm, which usually limits the size of the transducer.