Speaker
Description
The protection of workers from adverse health effects caused by electromagnetic fields is ensured by the exposure limit values set in the European Workers’ Directive 2013/35/EU in terms of the in situ electric field strength. To simplify the application of this Directive, (more conservative) action levels in terms of the external magnetic flux density have been additionally provided therein. Specific action levels for magnetic field exposure of the limbs were developed using induction factors, however, up to now there is no scientific evidence available to what extent the latter can be considered conservative for magnetic field exposure of the hand.
Since highly localized magnetic field exposure, especially for the hands, occurs at many workplaces, this issue needs to be addressed. Examples for such exposure scenarios are in the powerful hand-held machinery (e.g. welding), induction heating, de-magnetization, and deactivation of single-use labels for electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems. In our current work, we execute systematic numerical computations for uniform magnetic field exposure of various anatomical hand models to derive robust induction factors for the hand that can be used in occupational exposure assessments.
