Assessment of Induced SAR in Children Exposed to Electromagnetic Plane Waves Between 10 MHz and 5.6 GHz

Jurriaan F. Bakker, Margarethus M. Paulides, Andreas Christ, Niels Kuster, and Gerard C. van Rhoon, in Physics in Medicine and Biology, Volume 55, Issue 11, pp. 3115–3130, June 2010, online May 12

This study aimed to assess if the SAR in children remains below the basic restrictions upon exposure at the reference levels of EMFs as defined by ICNIRP (1998). Finite difference time domain (FDTD) modeling was used to calculate the SAR in six children and two adults when exposed to all 12 orthogonal plane wave configurations. A sensitivity study showed an expanded uncertainty of 53% (SARwb) and 58% (SAR10g) due to variations in simulation settings and tissue properties. It was found that the basic restriction on the SARwb is occasionally exceeded for children, up to a maximum of 45% in small children. The maximum SAR10g values, usually found at body protrusions, remain under the limit for all scenarios studied. The results suggest that the recommended ICNIRP reference levels need to be revised. A corrigendum has been published (April 2011).