This paper reports an investigation on efficient finite element (FE) simulation of pulse infrared thermography of CFRPs.The very short duration of pulse heating as well as the layered structure and the anisotropic thermal properties of CFRPs impose specific constraints to the FE analysis of this transient thermal problem.Hence, for FE based optimization of pulse thermographic experiment, appropriate selection of FE parameters is critical so that the computational intensity is reduced without compromising the defects' quantification.Various modelling aspects including non-uniform heat flux induced by the flash lamp, element formulation and appropriate mesh sizing of out-of-plane and in-plane directions and the defect modelling approach are discussed.The effect of the modelling approach on the defect quantitative parameters and post-processing of calculated thermal images is investigated.Alternative modelling approaches are proposed and compared in terms of their reliability for defect quantification and their computational cost. 1