Issues of ICNIRP guidelines when determining compliance with LF exposure limits

Abstract

Safety guidelines for limiting exposure to low-frequency (LF) electric and magnetic fields have been issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) in 1998, first, and 2010, later. During this transition, the basic restriction moved from induced current density (ICNIRP 1998) to in-situ electric field (ICNIRP 2010). Moreover, the 99th percentile value of the electric field has been introduced in the latter guidelines to avoid staircasing errors associated with sharp corners of the cubical voxels. However, lack of clarity has been reported by several authors when determining compliance with these exposure limits leading to poor reproducibility. The selection of the 99th percentile value does not resolve the intended purpose of eliminating numerical errors and can ignore genuine peaks in the induced electric field. Solutions to these problems are proposed.