Calculation of the Impedance of an E-cored Coil Placed above a Conductive Material with a Surface Hole

In eddy current testing, probe-coils with the E-type pot core are commonly used for detecting defects in test objects. In this paper, an analytical mathematical model of such a probe placed above a two-layered conductive material with a surface hole has been presented. The final formulas in the closed form that make it possible to calculate the coil impedance were worked out using the truncated region eigenfunction expansion (TREE) method and implemented in Matlab. Changes in resistance and reactance were determined for both material without a hole and for space containing no conductor. The results were compared with those obtained for the air-cored coil and the I-cored coil. The correctness of the calculations was confirmed through experimental measurements and with the finite element method (FEM) in the COMSOL Multiphysics package.