An analytical model of an I-cored coil located above a conductive material with a hole

The paper examines the problem of an axially symmetric I-cored coil located above a three-layered plate with a hole in the middle layer. A cylindrical coordinate system was applied, wherein the solution domain was truncated in the radial direction. The employment of the truncated region eigenfunction expansion (TREE) method resulted in deriving the final formulas for the change of the coil impedance with regard to the air space, and also pertaining to the test object without a flaw. Formulas for various configurations of the test object, among others for a surface hole, a subsurface hole and a through hole, have been presented. For the purpose of defectoscopy, the influence of the hole in the plate on the impedance components was investigated. The calculations were made in Matlab for frequencies from 100 Hz to 50 kHz. The obtained results were verified using the finite element method (FEM) in Comsol Multiphysics package. A very good agreement was observed in the case of both the resistance and reactance.