The invention discloses a pulsed excitation-based dynamic thermal chromatography imaging detection system and method and belongs to the technical field of imaging detection. The system comprises a mobile station, a first xenon lamp, a first xenon lamp power line, a thermal infrared imager, an Ethernet cable, a computer, a USB data line, a data collection card, a BNC trigger signal line, a vertical lifting platform, a second xenon lamp power line, a BNC data line, a xenon lamp power supply and a second xenon lamp. The pulsed excitation-based dynamic thermal chromatography imaging detection system and method have the advantages that non-destructive and non-contact efficient detection of defects of surfaces and shallow surfaces of a composite material, a metal material, an inorganic nonmetallic material and a synthetic material can be achieved, and meanwhile, the system and the method are not limited by the size of a detected material; lateral heat diffusion of heat flow can be relatively well reduced, thereby improving the signal-to-noise ratio (lightweight) of defect detection; by adopting the xenon lamps as light sources, short-time high power (time 1/600s and short-time peak power 4,000W) injection of energy can be ensured; and three-dimensional reconstruction of material defects can be achieved.