Numerical Calculation of Induced Currents in Humans and Experimental Animals Exposed to ELF Electric Field

As the sources of strong ELF(extremely low frequency) electromagnetic energy have increased in our living environment such as high voltage transmission lines, their biological effects have become the problem of public concern[l]-[3]. In order to analyze the biological effects of ELF electric field on humans and animals, the coupling between an electric field and an animal body has to be well understood. The currents induced inside the body are as important parameters as the surface electric fields to assess the biological effects of ELF electric fields. Some theoretical and experimental approaches have been done to establish a general method to obtain the induced body currents[4]-[11]. This paper proposes a new technique which calculates the currents induced in an animal body exposed to the ELF electric field. The induced cur­ rents are obtained from the cross sectional area of the tube of force that contains the same number of electric lines of force at each cross-section. Here, the tech­ nique is applied to the human body that is assumed to be axially symmetrical. To verify the reasonability of this method, the induced currents are measured using a small phantom model.